I think the point is the devs war on player controlled flight. Since druids have this built it, it really does adversely affect them in a very special way.
DH/rogue mechanics aren’t really related to player flight. I do see your point, but it really isn’t related to player flight.
The way they design zones to justify toys and DH gliding is a big reason why the war of flight rages on. The devs think that this is interesting design but I don’t see it.
Actually, (and I don’t know if you were around then, but) they “promised” a really awesome ground game that would make us forget all about flight.
This is what they did instead:
Portals (these destroy the seamless area-to-area immersive travel WoW is known for.
Flight whistles - ah yes, summon your own personal flight master. Adding insult to injury, you can have the FM use your own flying mount. YOU can’t use it, but the FM can.
More flight paths – nothing says “immersion” like being able to get up and make that ham n cheese whilst traveling
on a flight path.
Tiny itty bitty real estate with everything crammed and jammed together, complete with mounds of trash packs there to annoy you, daze you and knock you off your mount. Immersion.
Terrain hazards. Isn’t it FUN to suddenly drop through the world, or get stuck on a rock or jutting edge, requiring you to hearth or die to escape? Wow, what total funz!
It may be that the mechanics you specified were also intended to contribute toward that “awesome ground game.”
Me? I give the entire enterprise a big, fat FAIL.
You said what needs to be said and you didn’t dandy job of it. Word for word is true.
The problem is that a lot of oldschool players were complaining about flying… Now that we have oldschool servers in my opinion Blizzard should remove the pathfinder.
We need to keep it real, Wow retail is big… man it takes so many time flying around the maps… we don’t need pathfinder anymore it is only an excuse to shorten artificially the content.
Old-school players did not complain lol don’t kid yourself. I’m one of them bro, and never have I heard of anyone complaining.
Complete fiction.
Where do these 
stories come from?
Link or it didn’t happen.
Not really. True since WoD and Team “Can’t Do” took over.
For instance, instead of fake content like mission tables which are just glorified timers:
Instead…
You could use the mission table to select followers and a mission AND you and your followers get to go out in the world together and do the mission!!!
Don’t hold your breath waiting lol. Got ino a similar discussion with that level 11 warlock that loves to shill for the devs in a flight thread months ago. She posted something people complained all the time on the forums when flying was added to the game. I said pics, or it didn’t happen. I guess after her hours of internet searching I finally got a response from her. She linked one thread from way back in 2011. One thread lol. It wasn’t even a complaint about flying in general. It was someone who was complaining about flight it being added to Kalimdor, and Eastern Kingdoms( cata was still current content at the time). Yippee day you found one thread lol. Then she said there were plenty more. Then why didn’t you link any of those? She then proceeded to link a few others trying to pass them off like they were made way back when TBC, and wolk were current. Looked at the dates on those threads, and they were from late 2013, and 2014. Well after the Blizzcon 2013 no flight in wod announcement lol. Never got a response after calling her out on that one haha.
Flying’s time gate in BC and (maybe) WotLK was the time invested into getting gold. By Cataclysm 5k gold was easier to come by, this is the expansion where soloing old raids became viable and most players could afford it within a week or two.
Along comes Pandaria, 5k is pocket change something has to be done. And done it was, and it was done wrong; WoD Pathfinder is a pain in the buttcheeks to go through, if you want to complain about grind and time gate this is the Pathfinder you’re looking for.
Legion and BfA are, on the other side, pretty well structured: You’ve seen our content? Enjoy your wings then. Honestly by the time you’re done with each zone’s story you’re close to if not already Revered with it’s respective faction, with the one exception being Tortrollan.
People usually complain about the lack of plot and/or content; the story is there, the content is there. You want to skim over it and get to end game? Guess what? That is also a grind and it is also time gated.
I’m not saying Pathfinder is the perfect solution, but without it I wouldn’t have experienced some quality content like Drustvar or Suramar.
You want to complain about rep grinds? Try unlocking Void Elves/Lightforged, their respective stories leave you at Friendly. Friendly! From there it’s 3-4 weeks of dailies in at the very least, in old content, where you cannot fly even if you’ve earned it (Highmountain and Nightborne are extremely easy in comparison).
If by “oldschool players” you mean “Blizzard devs that wanted to cut back on development time by removing flying”, then yes that would be accurate.
Nobody ever complained about flying except Blizzard themselves. And if you ever actually saw someone doing it, they were by far the vast minority, like 0.01% if even that. And they literally only ever complained about it because they claimed it ruined world PVP, even though world PVP was ruined long before BC when Blizzard put battle grounds into the game, you can see it happening right now on Classic servers with the release of battle grounds.
No, I just don’t cry to the moon and back over something as minuscule as being able to fly in the open world.
To say the entire game game isn’t enjoyable because you can’t fly is so laughably silly.
There’s a large list of issues with BfA. This flying “issue” is one of the most irrelevant issues. Nobody is quitting over this.
Bro this idea is so solid! You should totally submit it. I would be down 100%
Just because flying isn’t important to you doesn’t mean it isn’t important to many others. I’m not buying SL because of pathfinder (specifically the time gate) so here’s one to add to your statics.
Sure you won’t, bud. But I think your entire notion is hilarious.
Imagine not playing a game just because you can’t fly right off the bat. Do you only play the game to fly around areas? lmao
There are many reasons people stop playing. Those reasons are just more substantial than, “it’s a bit more inconvenient to travel the open world”.
Because we got flying right at max level for 8 years and the game was more fun back then. Having one of my favorite features time gated for a year and announced that the next expansion will be the same? Nah hard pass.
Oh, so the only reason the game was more fun back then was because pathfinder didn’t exist? Like I said, there’s a reason Blizzard doesn’t take some of you guys seriously.
Blizzard had faith that their content was fun back then and didn’t need to lock one of the most popular features behind doing everything possible in the open world. We got flying right at max level and had fun doing the content.
Shame you can’t see past your own biased opinion and realize certain aspects of this game are important to people.