Let me answer this for you here in a very straight manner:
Your being has no value. I have no value. Nobody has value here. You agreed in the EULA that you dismiss your right of ownership to everything. That’s why it has no value and will ultimately be lost if WoW shuts down. That’s the reality. We don’t know how long the game servers will run. Why? Because we didn’t expect a lawsuit in the past, declining game quality or too prideful developers either and everything happen.
The future is not certain, not given and you should enjoy every moment it lasts. The easier solution would be to play on private servers but we do want to see the game supported, aren’t we. That’s why there need to be changes. Older players are gone, new players come in. There will be always an ever-shifting demographic and the developers hung themselves up on a prideful promise that old stuff will not return.
No, this is not acceptable, especially when the game uses constant reminders of things you cannot acquire for your own. If you want to live in this fake world, then feel free to do so. I, on the other hand, fight for the future, the people who come after us and for a better game. There is no certainty that you will play in five or ten years. These time-capsule thinking helps nobody but the people who are too emotionally attached to digital things they do not own.