Conflicted because I want to believe (cue the x-files music) they try every time.
A lot of people hated Trashran (yeah I know this is WoD but stay with me) but I felt they were really headed in a decent direction with pvp in Pandaria. Probably though because I’m a casual in that aspect of the game (boo hiss shut it, casual) but I felt they really tried to get the balance right. Timeless Isle was yeehaw fun.
I loved the challenge mode but I can see that lead to more and more content to take advantage of FOMO and was the genesis of Mythic+. The gulf between the “haves” and the “have nots” had a huge growth spurt and it spurred this feeding frenzy that made it possible for players to not just accept but embrace purchasing gold that continued to drive the arms race. Token is just the worst and while not introduced during Pandaria but rather WoD you can with hindsight see it coming.
There are other things but I’ve probably already bored people while yapping about this. WoD and onward was a big drop off/let down for me. I keep seeing people talk about the “challenge” of retail and Classic being a solved game so the only thing left is to push speed. That’s certainly a way to play but for me and the reason I’m here is that Classic and the first two expansions still have the story driver and fewer ways to bypass playing the game to advance rather than a system advance you. This “old” part of the game rewards you (for the most part) commensurate to the effort you put in rather than running on a hamster wheel till the cheese falls in your face.