It's not the money.

If I'm reading it correctly, it's the training part of it too such that if you're L70 and you spec Pyroblast, you'll instantly get max rank pyro, rather than start with the basic entry-level pyro.

This means no more "I'm in a hurry to respec for a raid, lol oops I forgot to re-learn all the higher levels of the talented skills" stuff that you KNOW happens every once in a while.

It's a stupid thing to have to change, but a very very obvious one that should have changed a long time ago.

No, it IS the money that is the reason that this needs to change. While you are leveling up you should be able to experiment with different builds to see what works best for your style of play and the gear you have. After you reach 70 you should be able to select 1 skill for each of the talent trees and be able to switch between them at will with NO charge. If you want to change the builds you have selected then THAT'S when you should be charged. You also should have the ability to select between armor and weapon sets without having to fill your bags full of armor and weapons. They should be selected just like changing your specs. possibly a 5 second cast time with a 5 minute cooldown or something.

Let me help you understand my thought about having 3 separate builds at the same time...

I play a rogue, so I'd have 1 build for each of the talent trees:
Assassination
Combat
Subtlety

If I wanted to switch between the 3 builds I would just click on a tab or whatever and after a cast time POOF. I'm now a completely different rogue and then I can change my armor set and weapons to complete the change. That way you can have talent and gear builds for PVE, PVP, and RAIDING.

Now if I ever wanted to say change from combat maces to combat swords, I would then have to pay to make the change to the talents for that build.
The same can be done for any class since there are 3 "trees" for all of us.
Now even though there are 3 trees, you won't necessarily have to spec heavy in each of them, after all you choose how to spend your talents, but you are limited to only 3 builds.
So in theory, I can be a combat mace, combat swords, and a combat dagger rogue all at the same time and just change my build and weapons to suit my mood.

I hope this makes more sense, if not, sorry it's late and I'm tired.

Everquest 2's system is almost identical, but a little cheaper (30 days after your initial respec, it resets to 10 gold, according to what I read).

OTOH, EQ2's is more for experimentation-- the game doesn't require as many roles, in general. For example, there are no BGs. It's my impression that you wouldn't generally respec multiple times a week as a matter of course, but I don't play, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

you are pretty much correct about EQ2, your not so pidgeon holed with your specs.

WoW uses its talents to create almost 3 "subclasses" per class. They have 9 main classes and 3 subclasses for about 27 classes, essentially.

EQ2 has 24 classes already, and each class has 2 areas with roughly 5 trees in each. While you generally find raiders to roll with a certain spec for their class, you chose your role when you choose your class, not your spec. For instance the Prot War is like the EQ2 Guardian, the Fury War like the EQ2 Zerker. Both the Guardian and Zerker have the same first area with 5 tree's and a separate class based second area with 5 trees. Its alot more flexable and doesnt require respecting to perform a different role.

You realize that you won't actually be tanking anything without being Prot spec after kara right?

I mean you can get away with the idiotic "I do what I want" attitude for a while, and that's fine... but to actually do what needs to be done when raiding, it doesn't matter how you play when a certain spec has distinct advantages over others with regards to helping everyone out.

Wanna know the reason why it costs money to respec?

Two words. Money. Sink.

In order to keep an MMO economy running, there has to be some outflow to try and keep pace with the influx of money people make from questing/grinding. Don't counter it and you run into the problem of making the economy totally inaccessible for any new players (which we all know there are). Inflation would run rampant, and money would eventually be meaningless ala D2. That's why you'll never see respecs be free. Just be thankful they saw fit to bless us with a hard cap that it will never exceed.

Meanwhile, in Guild Wars, anyone can respec in any town, for free.