IMO warhammer is a better mmorpg but I still get dragged back to WoW, not because the game is better but because my friends won't move over, there are a few games out there that I think are on par or better but it's getting people over, blizzard does a great job of getting and keeping people, advertising budget is massive compared to over games.
if you're talking not b2p or p2p etc then I think runes of magic is the best out at from what I hear, rohan also wasn't to bad and if you want a lineage 2 type gore then requiem was pretty cool, you mite throw 4 story into the mix aswell
I got myself and Elite LE res 5 360 yesterday gets me a month free gold and silver forever, I guess in the end it's are you willing to pay and how much because as mentioned above you can find some deals on the subscriptions on ebay etc
different games appeal to different people, I play WoW these days but I alos love getting on my old mega drive/genesis game, different strokes for different blokes.