Player Levels 100 World of Warcraft Characters to Level 100...Why?

I quit playing World of Warcraft last year but still follow some of the weirder news to come out of that game and community.  One article that is making the rounds is about a person who decided to level 100 different characters to max level--which is currently 100 (read the article here).  Is this an achievement which should be hailed or mocked?

100 characters!  Insanity!

I will admit that my first reaction upon reading this was to laugh.  What a ridiculous waste of time!  Why would anyone possibly want to spend the time doing this 100 times?  I could completely understand the desire to level a character of every class for both factions.  That comes out to a whopping 22 characters.  At least you would get some variety in the quests due to the factional changes and the different abilities of each class.  But, really?  I was one of the weird people who actually enjoyed doing quests and leveling and I can't imagine doing anything like this.

After I got over my initial skepticism regarding this person's level of sanity I realized some things.  If leveling characters was what this person enjoyed in WoW then more power to him.  Of all the different people I played with over the over six years I played WoW many of them liked doing things that others would consider boring.  Way back in vanilla I had a guildmate who enjoyed mining.  He would turn on some music and do laps around certain zones collecting common minerals to use or sell and scout for rare nodes.  And he liked it--he said it was relaxing.  Another set of friends enjoyed playing the auction house and actually got frighteningly good at it (let's just say that they have trouble transferring because they are way over the gold cap per character).  They would spend hours monitoring the AH looking for underpriced items to snatch up and put back up for a profit.  Personally, I enjoyed fishing and would often volunteer to catch fish to help make potions and food for the guild bank (because of this weird love I also managed to catch the elusive Sea Turtle mount).  I suppose that's a strength of WoW that there are so many activities to choose from.

It's amazing that people can find absolutely silly things in games to use to keep testing themselves or to keep a game fresh.  The person who leveled all these characters actually got really good at speed leveling and had a well-defined strategy for completing zones impressively quickly.  So while my initial reaction was to laugh I also have to admire their ability to take something so dry and make it into something challenging and enjoyable.  So I /salute you person with 100 level 100's!  You found what you enjoy and ran with it.