The “use of arcane magic” was to create a plague that they would have the only cure for in order to enforce acceptance of said arcane magic.
Making them operate like pointy-eared Humans is better?
They aren’t like that at all in WoW no matter how many of you Night Elf “fans” regurgitate that line.
But apparently that’s how several people want them handled… by expecations of how Humans work.
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Ya op is garbo 
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Arguing that NE were “right” to exile the Highborne is off the point.
The point is that Blizzard presents, in “ancient” history a distrust of magic that was so strong that “arcane magic was outlawed on pain of death”. Today arcane mages are freely accepted.
This is treated as “ancient” vs. “modern”. Yet it is literally the same people.
They earned that acceptance… on the battlefield
The same would basically fall for thalassian elves
World of Warcraft: Illidan, chapter 6: “He had the ageless look of a mature night elf, which meant he could be any age from twenty years to fifteen thousand.”
We know Lorash seems to recall the original exile of Thalassian Elves so that line would be accurate for them as well in that they can be anywhere from 20 to thousands of years old but adulthood is reached normally which I hate the idea of having to be thousands of years old for my character to be my age anyways personally.
This is somewhat contradicted by the memorial to the Nine Kings of the Sunstrider line.
I mean you’re going around talking about Tolkien and your original OP is about sharks.
I’m not engaging w you on wow lore.
Elves in wow reach adulthood and then just don’t age for thousands of years. The new NE in the heritage quest is further proof of this.
That is exactly the Lore on Nigh Elves. Their aging got shut off when Nordrassil was planted, and then turned back on when the tree was burned at Reign of Chaos. As how that impacted children born during this period, if any, it’s not addressed. For that matter neither is maturation for any race.
The lore n Blood Eles is absolutely contradictory. Lorash talks of eperiencing the Exile personally whereas nine or ten genreations of Kings have rules.
Naga and Satyr on the other hand are immortal.
Elves. Young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, young, DEAD.
That’s it.
Antoinadas is described as being extremely aged, almost too old to wield Felo’melorn a.k.a. Flamestrike, when Arthas come’s a knocking on his door.
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Old for Elves is like weak for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s older than me by a few years and could most certainly kick my butt. Calling that mangy old wizard weak was an oversight.
You want to go tell the wielder of Frostmourne that?
Be my guest. 
I did, I farmed him for his favorite dead horse, and Shadowmourne. I told him so many times that I still have his death scene imprinted on the back of my eyeballs.
Not really, at least as things stand. Perhaps that was the way of things for most of Warcraft’s history, but it is no longer so.
Malfurion is described as feeling aches and pains from aging, as time goes on. And Antonidas was also described as aged.
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Yikes, poor Anasterian is so forgettable. And Antonidas gets a free race-change.
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This was back when using Arcane magic attracted the attention of demons just like it does in Warhammer and Dragon Age. Magi were either a walking time bomb or a liability for possession.
WoW has long since retconned consequences of using magic, so the historical hatred of magic by Nelves makes no sense now or looks foolish.
To me it just makes sense they allowed the shen’dralar highborne back into their society. On the recent years, Tyrande herself unlocked Illidan because recognized that his aid was necessary (and Illidan is a mage in nature), then they had the help of Jaina to defeat Archimonde, then they joined the Alliance which would probably make them interact with other mages, and Mordent and the shen’dralar always struck me as more cautious with magic due to what they have been through, and Mordent was also very insistent.
After so many world ending threats and wars in so little time, a big cultural revolution like that makes sense.