1. I'm on a middle of the run computer with 56K dial-up and the game runs fine for me. I get the occassional lag spike while playing, but it's not that bad - the worst times is when I enter a town/outpost with lots of people and my connection tries to process them all (I know it's not my graphics as my fps doesn't drop all that much, but I still "lag".. thus it's my connection). But apart from that the game plays fine on dial-up.
2. high's - no monthly fee, no level grind, no real need for gold unless you absolutely "have" to have something, plays great imo, low comp specs, runs well over dial-up, based more on skill than twitch, professions mostly well balanced, can play "solo" with henchies, nice storyline (not fully engrossing like some games), can play quest's & mission's with other players, can be part of a guild and do Guild vs Guild PvP if your guilds up to it, the game looks really nice, some of the music tracks are very nice as well (and some are down-right forgettable.. LOL)
Lows - terrible PvP community (they will abuse & insult anyone and everyone), moron PvE players, whiners saying ANet are ballwashers, typical immature behaviour in PvP and PvE (but this is a problem in all games), the Storyline is a bit weak (HA!) and really just goes everything very fast without really explaining anything, WaW (Worlds at War) can make things hard for Europeans to experience the UnderWorld or Fissure of Woe content, trade spam in local chat..