Yeah, I know what you're saying...and "borrowing" a character is exactly how I feel playing other games. What I loved about COH was the ability to make exactly what you thought up in your head- in terms of looks and weapons. It was an "altitis" dream come true. Sure I had my main toons, but every once in a while I would make up a fun one.
I tried WoW years ago, but I just can't do it. That game requires too much dedication and I didn't go very far with it, found myself fishing for rare fish oil and skinning to sell things on the market- never did much play.
Looks like Champions will be a no-go. I have a decent system, tons of Ram- COH ran perfectly...but for whatever reason the FPS is horrible for Champs. I turned the graphics down to pretty much the equivalent of pen and paper "stick figures" and the lag is still terrible. It's pretty much un-playable, I can't handle the death by lag, it was pretty embarrassing.
Looks like I will try The Secret World, I'm downloading it now so I hope it ends up being the missing link I was looking for, thanks again for suggesting it.