There's also shittons of posts of people who try retail, but get forced into the M+/Heroic raid meta so quickly they experience alot of toxic elitism and quit.

A short leveling experience to rush people into end game has been bad for retail in its own way, the problem being there's not very much "good" character progression that's accessible to casuals.

If you cut leveling out of the game, then that end game people say they love so much tends to wear thinner alot sooner.. Believe it or nor I don't think daily heroics and weekly raid lockouts are enough to sustain endgame progression for people, particularly when the community of WoW is so toxic and elitist.