Connected realms? Are you referring to the cross-realm dungeon finder? Because that’s all that Wrath added in that regard. And there were cross-realm bgs since Vanilla.
I think both those additions were terrible, btw. The last time I really cared about pvp was before patch 1.12 after which point pvp just became about killing and fighting alongside strangers. And the dungeon finder in Wrath destroyed the pve community that LFR finished off in the next expansion. But sadly it’ll be in Wrath since they just use the last patch and every system that existed at the end of the expansion. But out in the open world at least it’s just you and your fellow server players.
No, no Classic should be run just like Retail, because WoW becoming a lobby game of strangers worked out so well the first time.
Originally the game kind of forced you to be social. You had to group up. You had to make friends. And Blizzard removed all that over the years. Starting really with the Dungeon Finder in Wrath.
WoW just became a lobby game where you queue up for things, join random strangers, do your thing, and move on. Never see or talk to them again. There’s literally no reason to communicate with anyone outside of Mythics. Other players might as well be bots. I don’t know how anyone calls WoW an mmorpg anymore. They’ve completely forsaken the mmo audience.
And it was sad to see that same warped audience infect Classic. Especially after TBC’s boost, which brought them in even bigger droves. They treat it like Retail. Just look at the forums. I guess that was inevitable. The community makes an mmo, and the community is nothing like it was back in the day. And it’s the devs’ fault for the direction they took this game. But it is what it is and it’s not going to change.