My biggest hangup with retail isn’t really the game itself… it’s the 20 years of stuff I’ve missed. I just don’t enjoy skipping ahead. Am I unique or do others feel the same?
I’d love for the anniversary servers to begin a path towards a permanent long-term solution to this by allowing characters to create a “legacy” of their own based on their accomplishments in each given expansion across the history of the game.
When TBC launches, I propose TBC gets a new server. Anniversary players can opt for a one-time copy of their current character to the TBC server while also leaving it on vanilla.
Every following expansion does the same - Fixing the biggest problems players had in each expansion, so they don’t suck (usually this was endgame progression/time gating, so easily solvable).
Where this gets cool, is that Achievements are redesigned to be across these legacy servers. Achievements become your legacy, and you can only earn an achievement in the ERA where the content was released.
This way, players can both progress content in whatever expansion they are currently playing, while still raid-logging or otherwise progressing content in prior expansions, and it all ties in together.
Eventually (every 3-5 years?), people will want a new fresh with new phases. A fresh “legacy experience” when each expansion reaches the end and players move to the next, the legacy servers combine.