Haven't looked into GW2 much but that's just my opinion on what Rift is. All games nowadays are lacking in actually living up to the claim that they have something people haven't seen before and it's majorly long-awaited.
Before anyone talks about whatever game that's currently in development - I'd rather wait to see actual proof of it than interview tactics to build up the hype train.
Young MMOs will mostly be relying on the appealing to their players in visuals and how well they package a generally old feature to feel new again.
Rift's gonna have it's fans who've been following it since the beginning up until Trion does some major screw-up that makes them quit, GW2 is gonna have the GW1 fans and WoW will have the "It's the father of MMOs and any MMOs after WoW are our clonezzz" nerds who seem to forget there were other games before it that WoW drew inspiration from. >.>