I want to preface this post by saying I agree with his argument about making a method to preserve the old game as it was in an effort to cater to players that maybe want to experience those old raids but were too young or too naive about the game to really min-max their way into top guilds and missed out on that.

Now to address a lot of the hate for retail wow I hear. I think the major problem here is a lot of people quit wow when things got casual (which most people mark as the beginning of Cata) and they never returned, or if they came back they played at the start of the xpac, leveled up to max level, maybe raided a few weeks and quit again. A lot of people complain about mechanics being removed, classes being homogenized, talent trees losing their depth etc. These sort of complaints just aren't valid anymore. I mean I have done mythic raiding in the current iteration of WoW and I must say, mythic raiding is literally one of the more intense things I have ever experienced in WoW in a long time. I mean people say "lol trying to organize 40 players was hard" but look at the fight mechanics of vanilla raids, they were bland and effortless. I played a warlock in vanilla and my job was pretty much to just cast my rotation maybe there will be an occasional banish target. In current mythics the fights are tuned to 20 players, go google the raid boss guides for some of the end game bosses they are literally 30 minutes long to explain the nuances of the fights. It is an elaborate dance and if one player messes up and dies the fight becomes incredibly more difficult requiring you to have backups to take up mechanics and backups to backups. Another argument people complain about is LFR. For some reason there is serious hate about LFR. Let me say this, current LFR gear is terrible - it is literally only designed for players that just hit 100 and are trying to close gear gaps. People like to say "why raid when you can do LFR and experience the content" let me say this. You literally ONLY experience the environment. I mean if you actually considered that as having completed the raid and you're satisfied then honestly vanilla servers will not be the place you want.

To address the other complaint (loss of mechanics/class homogenization): a lot of people are upset so many classes have the same set of skills. Honestly, if you guys recall in world of roguecraft back in vanilla they even referenced the "rock paper scissors mushroom" mentality of class distinction. There were very clear strengths and weaknesses and as such some classes just stomped on others. With this "homogenization" that really blurred the lines and I think it has made pvp better. I mean have you guys played nostalrius pvp? as a caster facing a melee target you're just sitting there praying you manage to get your CC spell off so you can get max distance and pray for crits. That is seriously boring gameplay. Honestly, it took me a while (i played a warlock in nostalrius because i played one in vanilla) to get in the flow of vanilla pvp because it was just so bland. I literally just sat there dotting. If it was a melee I popped curse of exhaustion and kited. I mean sure that was a little fun but I could only imagine how annoyed I would be if i was a warrior getting kited, just out of range of melee just out of range of charge. Now with all the "homogenization" that occurred, any class can really beat any class. Sure some are stronger but they're only stronger because they provide a different asset to the pvp meta (i.e. huge burst potential). I mean as a ret paladin I really don't care who I fight, and pvp is a bit more fun knowing when to react and how to react to win the fight against whichever class.

That being said, since cata (which was really when the major complaints of homogenization began if i recall correctly) I think blizzard has improved on making sure you feel like the class you're playing matches the fantasy of the class and I mean in a mythic raid setting each healer feels distinct, however, they aren't distinct enough that we feel we need "x healer over y healer because x healer provides z utility which y healer does not". Blizz has made sure each class provides a utility (i.e. 1 or 2 big healing CDs) and as such you can really replace 1 for 1 and still sort of be okay. (of course though really high end mythic guilds will bench people on a per fight basis because they want to be turbo efficient).

Another big thing is community. And I must say I totally agree with this statement, even playing on nostalrius I recall the fun of playing where people recognize you. I must say with crossrealms and whatnot that is kind of lost, but I mean you still have your guild and other guilds on the server. I mean when a mythic boss averaged something like 300 wipes for progression (mythic gorefiend) you really do build a sense of community with your guild and that being said, other mythic guilds (especially those that are similar to your skill) often will interact and share information etc.

Ultimately, I understand the interest for a vanilla server to experience that old content, but I honestly get pretty annoyed when I see people comment about how wow is a terrible game, when quite honestly, I think it provides amenities that all modern MMOs attempt to provide.

Edit: extra bonus content in regards to garrison because as I was writing this essay I noticed that complaint came up in another comment. I think blizz sort of pushed garrisons because they felt they needed to add player housing (especially with a major wow competitor like wildstar coming up [which could have actually hurt wow significantly if the dev team didn't blunder pvp and class balance within the span of 1 content update] and providing housing). As such, they pushed garrisons and I mean garrisons provided very similar housing functions as other games like wildstar did. However, I think the fault in why people think garrisons were so overtuned is to blame the professions development team. Professions in WoD are boring and all of the materials you make require items that are on a fixed time limit so it's like "oh I need to craft myself an epic gem... I'll just wait 5 days until I have enough crystals". People say "why play wow when you can just sit afk in your garrison" and that is totally meh. I mean DO people sit in their garrison? yes. Are they gaining anything from doing that? no. Does that make the game world seem dead? yeah maybe but with legion I think they are addressing that problem by creating the class halls which function as garrisons but are more community based.

As far as legion goes though, blizzard is doing another major class revamp. Pretty much every class is getting some major changes to the point where gameplay is being reworked for almost everyone (I think shamens got the shaft though? I don't recall).