I wouldn’t say it feels exactly like it did in vanilla. New zones, while pretty big, aren’t as big as EK/Kalimdor. Quests are a lot more involved than bring me 10 raptor heads, when there are only 5, the spawn timer is long, and the drop rate is low because of headless raptors.
The stakes are a lot higher. In vanilla the villains were much more of a local threat rather than a threat to the whole world. But yeah the gameplay is still basically the same, if a bit faster paced.
I’d say overall the game has improved a lot with time.