Having done 6/15 Naxx during actual Vanilla and fully clearing it on 3 separate private servers, there is only one argument to be made, and that is the race. Speed clearing. Getting better at what you’ve done. At some point, your beloved and dedicated toons need to be relegated to the trash bin, or at least a permanent server where everyone is equal-geared at the Naxx extreme and penultimate Rank 14.
Fresh servers and rerolls are what keep the feet dancing and the sense of urgency afloat. Every single person gets complacent at some point. Every single person wants community. If the community decreases to a point where the only option is to reroll and make a new toon on a fresh server where the best guilds are competing out the gate at level 1, people will follow.
It sucks. Losing toons you’ve dedicated years to. I’ve had numerous characters I loved that were thrown in the trash bin. I miss every single one of them, and I miss the friends I didn’t save to Discord or keep their cell numbers. I always end up making new friends and have new adventures.
What’s the point of constantly rerolling? Well, to play the game we love. No matter the cost, or the trouble. I’d happily pay $50/month to see my characters gone after 3 years of Naxxramas farming just to make a new one. I’m probably not the only person that feels this way.
Vanilla is a grind. It’s long and arduous journey. What Blizzard is offering is not Valhalla where we all end up getting drunk and having arm-wrestling contests for eternity in the throes of WSG. They are offering us a platform to play Vanilla. If it were to stay right at the top, at the end of progression, and ballpark number, 98.346% of players didn’t need 1 single piece of gear, you would see the inevitable decline of Vanilla. People would get bored of it. Even those that have never seen Naxxramas. Getting together 40 people or even say 60 people with 20 rotating, for 156 weeks / 3 years, would be lackluster. It would serve no purpose. There would be no need. Ok, maybe if you wanted to gear your 8th and final alt.
The only logical answer is to either progress, into BC, or to light a new candle, a fresh server, a dank meme. Since not all of us want BC, and some just want Vanilla perpetually, this serves that purpose. They can do this with BC, WOTLK, Cata, and as far as they want.
The amount of content in Vanilla is nearly endless. There is a lot to do. But if your only goal is to get big and bad, full T3 and R14, you’re missing out on the rest of the food at the table. There’s more to Vanilla than meat and potatoes. There’s twinking, world pvp, new classes you’d never have imagined to have played, new friends to make, friends to lose, enemies, tricks, professions, simple and majestic moments along the coast of Tanaris, fishing for Winter Squid.
Having done the R14 grind twice, and gone through Naxx, I will tell you that subjectively, what keeps me going, is kissing those characters goodbye, and starting new on the same playing field as everyone else. On a new Orc, or Troll, or Dwarf. A new anything. I know that all that I have ahead of me is a great journey. Not a daily chore of logging in parsing logs and ranking with some friends, or sitting on the rooftops of Darkshire ganking noobs.
I’d much rather start new every few years than sit on my Grand Marshal Claymore and rotate until it festered up and I left to go play water polo.
Just my 2 cents.