Ever since Achievements first launched the game has gone further away from character progression in favor of player progression. We have more account wide achievements, rep rewards, mounts, pets, etc than ever before.
With M+ and the quick rise of Raider .io which only considers player skill and has nothing to do with individual characters I expect this pattern to only continue.
I just don’t see how we could feasibly have true linear progression like there is in other RPGs across 7+ expansions without either:
A. Forcing people through the entirety of the game before hitting level cap to be met with a massive amount of bloat or,
B. Rebuilding the game from scratch because as it is now WoW doesn’t have the foundation required to pull it off