Games are not always 'fun', that's not the definition of a game, and not all games are played for leisure.
I guess everyone here play videogames for leisure (some play for money, but lets leave that aside since is just a small minority). Fun is subjective and everyone has a different taste in that. Some people find wow great; some people don't. Some people find Eve the uttermost boring thing in the universe; some people find it the coolest. You can't try to argue what things are 'fun'. The only sure thing is that gaming is a way for leisure for the grand majority here.
The casual game market has made billions of dollars on Fun/Leisure games like angry birds and farmville. Coming from a serious raiding guild in Wow, I can tell you that parts of that game were fun, but the most rewarding part of the game came from the challenging parts.
How can you conclude that everyone find the 'challenging parts' more fun? If casual games are more popular, the evidence points that the majority of the gamers prefer instant gratification instead of long challenging plays. You can make a case that you like 'slower' gratification games, but thats for you only.
But, this is a persistent challenging world, and the addition of random challenge-free resources doesn't fit.
If you can find money on the ground walking on the street, why can't the same thing happen on a GAME?
Personally, I don't thing this will add or take anything big from the game. I think I will quit the game for lack of things to do. Reading some protests here about adding a small simple random treasure on the world makes me fell that the game will stay the same for a long time...