This is a very insightful comment that people seem to continue to overlook. Blizzard even said (here: Overcrowded Realm Update) that they have the capability to increase the current population capacity on classic servers by x7, and that a “Medium” classic server has a population already exceeding a “Full” vanilla server.
So if you’re currently playing on a “High” or “Full” classic server, you’re likely playing with a population that is already something like 4-5 times vanilla capacity. If one truly wants the vanilla experience, then Blizzard should simply increase the spawn rate, and a simple way to do this is to just reduce the respawn time by a factor that is equivalent to the increased server populations as compared to vanilla.
That means going from 1 hr respawns to something more like 10 or 15 min respawns for “High” and “Full” realms.