On the other hand, if the game requires endless grinding, and let's face it, a lot of these games are really just tedious work with a reward system built in, with little or no strategy or even decision making (beyond to play or not play), and you are literally paying to avoid drudgery. I've tried plenty of games where I soon realized it was nothing more than working towards a reward, and there was literally no "game" to it.

Well, if playing the game is drudgery, then it's not a good game. At this point, I would say the market should sort things out, but that doesn't appear to be working. People are clearly playing these games and getting hooked on them.

So, yeah, I agree with you... it's the Skinner box we need to discourage, but that's not always a black-and-white thing, because hard work and accomplishment, with the rewards that provide, are very similar in many ways. Ultimately, the Skinner box is an attempt to simulate the process of working hard to accomplish something and receiving the rewards for it without the whole "providing an engaging and challenging experience" aspect. It's exploiting a human instinct and subverting it in a harmful way.