I don’t think they’re burnt out - I think that they missed the obvious need for a sequel to this game somewhere around Warlords of Draenor, and now it’s too late. Ship’s sailed.
Only so much you can do with a game this old. You shouldn’t expect much from these folks anymore - they’re trying to give the playerbase infinite replayability because they also know they’re running out of fresh ideas for a game that has seen and done it all already.
You’re wrong, the expansion is literally going backwards from vanilla. Open wide spaces, non-linear questing, even frivolous, stupid stuff like being able to go to war with the Argent Dawn, now that’s all gone, with small video game (yes – I mean like Doom 1990s style design rather than Half Life verisimilitude) like level design.
MoP was quite ugly and corny but at least its worldbuilding was fairly good, for example.
I don’t even know what you’re trying to say here.
What exactly don’t you like? The layout of the world?
Well, vanilla is basically seen as the most barebones of WoW and Shadowlands is somehow regressing even from that. On talking about going to war with the Argent Dawn, that was something interesting honestly, even if it was a bit stupid, being able to go to war with the Cartel, too bad they did not expand on this concept and give benefits to it.
For reference, WoW came out 16 years ago.
Just imagine comparing WoW to a game that came out in 1988, the difference is simply astonishing. It’s basically like having space travel in 1969 and then you suddenly go back to steam trains, that’s how silly this is.
Sounds like you’re bored of the game and are just nitpicking the tiniest of details. And features that have been in the game for a long time
Legendaries you can choose to craft and rng single player roguelikes are probably what we will inherit from this expansion, which I think are great quality of life updates.
Seriously?
They must have chosen Threads of Fate.
I was excited to be able to to ToF, so I did that on my second toon. I’m not sure if it took the same time to get to 60, it sure felt it took a lot longer.
Most of the devs are just employees who have nothing invested in the game. By all appearances they have been understaffed for years. So they might be burned out.
But there’s also the issue that the game has been moving toward template design for years. World quests. Check. Mission tables. Check. Fetch quests/etc. Check. System du jour, another jour another system, and two more currencies.
Creativity has completely been removed from design. Who would be inspired to do this work?
It was a slog because the player is made to complete the campaign. I hit 60 before Revendreth (like most I’m guessing). I think the speed is fine, it’s the content that made it a slog I think.
Now that I have my head above water with this expansion and I understand the systems and content I think I have to agree with the OP.
The average person who posts here will probably stick with SL. But they are not normal. They’re mostly a self-selecting group of devotees. Cheerleaders. The next big 1337, lol.
The average subscriber is going to get burned out and frustrated with SL. I think we will see a larger percent drop in subscribers than we saW in WoD because at least WoD allowed the player more flexibility and a functional story. SL is too rigid, too forced, too linear and the story is a hamfisted mess.
SL was obviously designed for the 16-21 crowd and those who still live like one of them by a team focused on pouring more money into cringe-y voice overs and pretty cosmetics than actual gameplay and a cohesive story.
That is all they have. It’s like they’re trying to convince themselves but are in denial.
It’s no surprise considering they are no longer hiring on talent. Who could have seen this coming? Oh no 
Anyone who only works for a paycheck will get burned out. If you enjoy the work you wont.
Well, in WoD the classes were fluid and the prune was actually good, compare it to the horrible prune in Legion and BFA. It was really fun playing in WoD, PvE and PvP it felt good and tuned, chunky, satisfying. Here I don’t know, I guess the abilities are close to the sweet spot of 2008-2015 but something just feels off.
Anyway, I was thinking of writing a massive list of points that would basically debunk the Shadowlands defenders.
The skin of MoP was horrible, anyway, but the meat of it was fairly good, close to WoTLK and BC. Lots of new systems that were good, but the lore and zones were ugly.
I enjoyed a good part of WoD, it still felt like WoW to me. If WoD would have kept adding content to it, it would have been a very good expansion.
Sure, this goes for the entire world we are in trying times but this isn’t a creativity
issue. Its arrogance, to design without the client/customer/target audience at the centre of your process… go back and rewatch every interview where there was a diaglogue… its not quite universal but in a very high number of cases blizzard said “we want your choices to mater” or “we want player choices to have consequences we believe player power is a big part of adding weight to that decision”.
Its always blizzard/Ion at the centre of his thought process, never what players want, seriously go back and look at the material… overwhelming streamers/interviewers anyone with a voice responded with “but who are you designing this for no one asked for this, this sounds terrible, you are overestimating your ability to balance it”.
Edit: this was also at an early stage of design but they plowed ahead… the feedback got so concentrated they even came up with #ripcord… which turned out to be a complete fallacy.
They have a vision for the game seems like that doesn’t fit well with what the original vision was. The game feels and plays more like Diablo or Path of Exile rather than World of Warcraft.
Earliest sign of the devs being burned out was probably around Cata.
Pandaria dropped, was a mixed bag for the playerbase.
Then we had WoD.
Legion wasn’t as bad as some people have made it out to be.
Then BFA came.
And here we are. 2 weeks in and people are already panning this expac as a dumpster fire.
lead dev is only into dungeons , not pvp , crafting , customizations ,rpg and every other aspect that makes a good mmorpg , his lead has turned the game into World of Dungeoncraft 
, just my 2 cents.