They concern me, and I personally wish they were cosmetic based exclusively, because I don’t like the concept of borrowed power that will go away at the end of an expansion, just playing a bit of devils advocate and not trying to damn a system before the player base gets their hands on it.
I like your statement. I hope they will do less with borrowed-power because getting a spell only for it to be removed feels very anti-RPG to me. I would prefer that they just add spells to our spell book and let us continue on our journey.
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Oof that is a weak comparison.
In your inane comparison, you would have to delete the shaman to make the mage.
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But what if I, Life, the Death Knight wish to go try it out, right now?
Must I get on my DK Irreligion, the Death Knight to go try out that other spell?
That’s dumb. Why would I want to play a separate toon if I’m trying to make Life stronger and also wish to play with a new ability?
Because Blizzard arbitrarily said “lol thems the breaks go level a new toon, kid” is a pretty dumb reason.
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I understand that part, I don’t like the concept of temporary borrowed power, but there will be some permanent remnant of our covenants in the form of cosmetics, titles, etc, and maybe they will decide to keep some popular abilities.
Ask Blizzard why they haven’t offered a class change service and I’ll gladly answer you as well. 
Also
^ That.
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The closest thing we’ve ever had to covenants. Is picking Alliance or Horde in Vanilla. (PvP servers)
That didn’t last long. Why is it coming back in a diluted form?
I actually really like the idea of factions and agency and ‘chose how your story develops’ type mechanics in games.
I don’t like my class growth being tied to it, and still for the 4th expansion having literally zero development on my class. On the contrary in the expansion all about being the ‘best of the best’(legion) where we became the strongest to ever play our individual class, lore wise, we lost every other spell that our class trainers ever taught us.
So why after emptying our cups have they refused to fill them again? It’s like they’re pouring into our empty cups some formless vapor. Soon to leave and be refilled with something new.
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Valid point, I am just playing devil’s advocate and want to try the system as was intended. Blizzard has already stated as early as the Alpha that they are not opposed to scrapping the entire idea if it goes poorly which is massive as far as transparency goes.
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no, that’s false equivalence
a mage vs a shaman is a class choice, a venthyr mage vs a kyrian mage is not functionally the same.
I started a shaman because I wanted to see how they played in pvp, but the decision between trying venthyr vs kyrian mage would be within the same character. Divided for “fantasy” reasons, when the fantasy of these abilities can be rewritten for another covenant easily.
It’s almost like Blizzard is actively trying to build the game so people will find it harder to min-max and the toxicity it brings to the game will burn out in favor of people playing whatever class/spec/covenant for fun reasons rather than “I can’t get a group for heroic dungeons because all my customizations aren’t set up for absolutely perfect output.” The sooner this dies, the sooner they can put that effort into making the game fun.
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I think they started down this road with the GCD change and sticking to it.
The covenant doesn’t need any defense
It is happening, you either accept and move on or keep whining and move on later. 
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Playing devil’s advocate here, but what if they ARE functionally the same? What if blizzard wants these to be essentially permanent extensions to our class?
I would not doubt that they’ll incorporate some into our classes in 10.0, but I also argue that specs are our subclasses
I main an Arms Warrior, I’m distinct from a Fury Warrior
Here’s the alleged early covenant movement abilities for anyone wanting to see them: https://i.redd.it/5xdw1nsq2k951.png
All distinct in their function, but in line with eachother for use in say Mythic+
They also solve the issue of needing a rogue for big skips, as everyone would have a means of it, disrupting meta in a good way
I think the unfortunate reality is in a 16 year old game Blizzard is finding it increasingly difficult to revamp classes every few years. It is easier to alter class game play with in-game systems than develop and balance new abilities and rotations.
Cuz they cute and really helpful if you want something to eat ticks
They’re seriously all bark and no bite
That’s ok. They shouldn’t. Vanilla -> Tbc -> wrath -> even cata.
they shuould BUILD on the existing classes and flesh them out. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel every single time.
instead they’re sitting on the same stagnant boring unpopular design for some unknown reason.
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Or we wait until 9.1 when Blizz finally starts listening to the feedback they’ve been getting since alpha.
I guess I’m one of the few who is looking forward to this system. I like the fact that we’ve got tough choices to make, that will separate us a little from each other. I like the fact that whatever covenant we pick, it will have real weight in the game and make us fundamentally different characters to the person who picked the other covenants, even if we’re the same class and spec.
However I’m not a major min-maxer, nor am I running the toughest content, and I will be up front with that. I can see why folks who feel they need to get that extra .01% DPS might be frustrated. But they too will have tough choices to make soon, and yes they will need to sacrifice in some things. I see nothing wrong with that. We don’t have to have everything. That’s what RPGs are about.
I really doubt they’ll get covenants, soulbinds, conduits, and legendaries anywhere near that close. Even 1% would be an amazing feat for Blizzard.