It's not the game that requires it, it's the people.
As much as I don't like it either, it can help a lot with making quick decisions while not taking your hands off of your controls. FFXI is a good example, at least for me, it was slow enough…
And they need a message board why?
They do not.
Blizzards biggest mistake was to have a msg board, look how well that turned out. People like you would just abuse the board to complain, because you can complain, not to bring anything construct…