Retail is pretty bad and feels elitist. If your playing a certain class aka Hunter you’re not viable in mythics or raids. So why should a person pay the same amount per month , feels like certain classes are getting an advantage. Not sure about your state but in this one it feels like a bait and switch which is illegal , also Classic / Hardcore community is way better.
if it weren’t for the story, all the quests, rep, events, etc. the game would be dead if it only contained M+, raiding and pvp end game content. I personally would not be surprised there are more people who do not do any of those 3 things you mentioned and yet enjoy logging on.
Mythic and Raids are similar and only one of many ways to play the game. Some people play PvP, others do achievements, others gather herbs, others just like doing the story the list goes on.
I hate saying it but I think WoD had more content than Dragonflight. It had mission tables, garrisons, and garrison events to do with friends. And still had Challenge Mode dungeons at least with unique rewards.
We’re probably in the most feature lite expansion since Cataclysm I guess? There’s definitely plenty of content patches but it’s fluff content and reskinned events mostly so yeah.
Dragonflight was worst for me because of all the forced participation content, and they released new stuff way too quick that I just gave up trying to keep up.
WoW…so you missed all the bad crap…WoD, BFA and SL. I can see why coming back was a shock.
I started in Legion, obviously I leveled up thru all that old content so I could see if I liked it or not, but WoD, then BFA and SL were absolutely irritating. DF I enjoy, but played it too much and burned out lol.