How much attention do you pay to the story? I mean this as no offense, but it sounds like you probably skip it. I could be wrong and you could be heavily into the cosmology, character arcs etc.
I personally only really play for the story anymore, and to waste time collecting things. Though to be fair, the lore outside of the game from the books is where I actually get hooked.
I enjoy the lore of this game, and I love the universe they’ve built.
Gameplay is actually the reason I don’t play as much as I used to.
It’s harder, but it’s still brain-dead easy, with no effective risk of dying. Being “harder” than retail leveling isn’t saying much.
WoW leveling was intended as a “casual” MMO, and that’s why it’s been successful. Trying to hearken back to some day when it was mildly less casual than it is now, but still orders of magnitude more so than any other MMO is grasping at straws.
“engaging” is also not something I’d use to describe classic leveling.
I’m about 2k gold past what is needed for flight by the time I hit 60. You’re doing something wrong. you can guess where this is going for the rest of the riding skills that I have no trouble buying with the gold I get while leveling a toon.
A toon wearing heirlooms speed leveling will have no gold.
Harder’s… Debatable. The only hard thing about Classic levelling is things aren’t just a clear path and there’s too much travel time. But hard? Nope, just ate time.
Nowerdays I reckon 1-60 on Classic could be done pretty quickly if you planned the path perfectly.