Check THIS out!!!
"At this point, Kaplan revealed the massive news that Blizzard are changing the way raids are done in Northrend, and making them similar to the 5 man instances, whereby they can be played on two levels of difficulty. All 25 man raids will also be available as 10 man raids. The loot tables will be completely different, the 25 man raids will have better and/or more loot, but this means that most players will get to see the end game content in the 10 man version, if not the 25 man one. He went on to explain the reasons behind this; Karazhan, the 10 man instance in the Burning Crusade, was the most popular instance in the game by far. The 10 man dungeons are obviously popular due to the fewer amount of players needed, and the easier difficulty level. Secondly, a lot of 25 man raiding guilds did not like to have to go through the 10 man raids to get access to the 25 man raids. This new system should please everybody (but I'm certain there will be the usual QQers!). Another interesting fact is that the 10 man raids and the 25 man raids will be on totally separate cool downs. This means that once a guild has completed the 25 man Naxxramas for example, they could go back and complete the 10 man version of it on the same day if they wish.
Blizzard will be closely monitoring feedback from the community following this announcement, due to its huge implications. It means that much smaller guilds will be able to participate in content that, until now, only the biggest and most organised guilds could manage, but Kaplan was very keen to stress that the 25 man setup would still be the most elite, rewarding experience out there."
So I'm interpreting this to mean that we don't HAVE to get all huge and unwieldy. We can keep our tight knit group together and progress through all the raid dungeons in the expansion together! Holy freakin WOOOOOT!!!!
