So I broke down today....

[Archon_Wing]

As, I've explained before, "The Game ends at hell" does not work. And just staring at the AH is proof.

1.) The Auction House is the of the most notable features of Diablo 3 and is integral to itemization and getting stronger.
2.) Once you reach level 60, there is no way to get stronger but get better items.
3.) The Drop rates suck
4.) Unlike Diablo 2, all characters of a class are identical besides gear differences. Once again this focuses the game on gear
5. The actual story content is pretty damned short, especially act 4, so even that will get boring.
6.) You can only have 10 character slots, so even if you replay the game, you can only do so much without deleting a character you invested time in.
7.) Items found in hell are largely worthless. You cannot easily trade between other hell players, because to them they will just move on, and as time goes along and more players progress into inferno, sub-60 items will not be worth the space they take up on the Auction House. You might make 100k from a lucky drop once in a while, but overall you simply will not be able to peddle your wares for more than a pittance.
8.) This leads to a situation where a hell only player must grind for gold at very slow rates or try to gain items that nobody will want anyways.
9.) I'd rather have 3 challenging but balanced difficulties. There's only 2 good difficulties in this game. Normal is piss easy. Nightmare should have been normal. Hell is the really only good difficulty along with nightmare.

Basically, "the game ends on hell" really can only exist if you use your imagination. In a game about shiny gear, and comparing that shiny gear, you must enter inferno or the game is incomplete. If you want to pvp, well... lol@ trying to get it from Hell Mode. If you wish to push the casual gamer argument, then I think "The game ends on normal" has more validity.

For the majority of people, Diablo needs to be balanced towards the endgame. It's a game about shiny prizes, and considering the journey to it isn't as interesting due to the lack of character customization and a short story mode, inferno is where the replay value will be at.

It's basically like having a game where you claim the last real mode is a certain difficulty, but you only get pennies and the occasional dollar as rewards, while the bonus mode is where all the millions of dollars are. It doesn't feel right at all.