in vanilla I wandered from Redridge to Burning Steppes…
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I learned more about all my class tools trying to take on mobs higher level… because I had a quest.
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That was an amazing time, peak WoW.
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even if that came back, youre gonna fly over it all and go from point a to point z without even seeing whats populating the areas you went over 
flying (outside of flightpaths) kinda ruined the game. it’s too late to go back now though. it’d be like taking away candy from a kid.
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Well yeah just look at how many grown adults are pissing their pants because Blizzard is creating two new areas without planned flying.
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I like scaling because it gives me the freedom to quest or level where I want, how I want, when I want. Gives me more autonomy than rigidly following a guide of 1-10 go to this zone then 10-20 go to this zone, etc etc…
Honestly, I disagree.
Just as a random disclaimer, dealing with a bunch of different classes and capabilities make things particularly difficult for the design team. What’s tough on one class maybe not be on another.
While there are moments like you discussed, there are others that were designed by intent to be what they were.
I look at things like the mine in Silverpine (the first one with the Werewolve mobs). Heck, any mine, to be honest, but that one, at such a low level.
At the level you’re at, your ability to cope with the groups is very low. 2 on 1 is a challenge, 3 and you’re dead. But you have tight spaces, patrols, respawns. Go in there with a weaker class, and you’re dead. Even well planned, its hard, as its hard to kill them fast enough (they’ll respawn on you).
Go in there on a Mage, drinking after every pull. Its a real trick.
But its supposed to be. In zones like Siverpine and Westfall, the designer ramped up the encounters. More mobs, more pats. Easily to blunder into a camp and get clobbered. Like potato chips, you can’t pull just one.
Those zones can be very humbling on new players because of the change in dynamics.
But they’re supposed to be. Time to skill up, time to learn what some of those other buttons do.
Norwatch Hold is a real trick on a similarly level Mage (like 18 or so I think). The mobs come in 3s, and you really need to pull out all the stops to clear them out of the towers. Sheep one, Nova the rest kill one, maybe too, and run away before the sheep pops to reset aggro. Again, one slip, and the respawns will make a mess of everything.
Couple levels later, more power, more DPS, its much easier because you just kill everything easily.
Mind, this was a game designed around your toon dying. Hardcore must be very hard (or at least very tedious) to play since the game is designed around killing you.
But the point is that those encounters I believe were done consciously. Amping up the difficulty. By the time you hit, oh, early to mid-20s, you have enough tools that the camps are simply no longer an issue. You have enough controls and such to cope. They stopped making it harder, now its just Work.
But early on, they went through some effort to not just place mobs around randomly. They designed those encounters with purpose. Moonbrook, was not a fluke. Its a notorious nightmare, AT THE RIGHT LEVEL, for a reason.
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I think the world in general felt more like it was ever present. It was dangerous, took a long time to navigate, and because of this, felt way larger and more core to the experience. In Vanilla, and in classic I feel much more like I am on a legit adventure, especially on PVP servers.
While I love a lot of what is in retail, this is something that I wish they could figure out how to bring back to wow. Put the WORLD back in World of Warcraft
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Something I enjoy about the pre-Cata world is the quests seem to more organically flow from zone to zone.
There is a lot of back and forth because different parts of the zones are higher level. So you may do early Duskwood at level 23 but you’re not finishing that zone until the low 30s. And in that time you’re getting quests in Redridge, Wetlands, Ashenvale, etc. I enjoy how it all builds up together instead of “do this zone start to finish” that retail became.
Hogger would sometimes sneak up on you
I recall Mor’Ladim and Stiches sneaking up on me more than once while leveling characters through duskwood
Seems like there would be other rarespawn elite packs that would be in various zones. I remember one in Loch Modan, I think it was like 3 orcs or 2 orcs and a tauren or something like that. I also recall a rarespawn pack that was in westfall, I can’t really remember what it was exactly, seemed it like it was 2-3 forskaen.
There was also the Forsaken Courier+guards that would travel along the road from Go’shek Farm in Artahi Highlands to Tarren Mill in Hillsbrad Foothills.
Fel reaver in Hellfire Peninsula of course
I’m sure there are other things that I am not remembering or have forgotten about. Classic was many moons ago
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I still remember WPL’s Welcome Bear… I miss Welcome Bear 
The scaling changes does make it that you lose a lot of the excitement about exploring the world around you. And it’s not like you really lost much, outside of needing to repair your armor if you do wander somewhere you’re not supposed to be.
(As a hunter main, don’t ask me how much I’ve spent on repairs corpse-running to tame specific pets. I genuinely would not be able to tell you LMAO)
I remember when my brother and I started playing and we tried to walk from Stormwind to Ironforge. I can’t remember if we ended up making it or not, died so many times 
Then we were like whaaaaat, there’s a tram?!
Can’t remember how we ended up figuring out the tram was there though.
Yeeeeeah it do be like that.
I think they should still have that with certain areas with mini-world bosses & such to reincorporate that feeling … To give a semblance of - “Oh yikes, I’m progressing up in the world! … of er, Warcraft.”
I remember one time during Vanilla I was running around Hinterlands and somehow ended up stumbling into Shadra Alor, a troll city full of elites. Being a WoW noob at the time I thought it was some sort of outdoor dungeon. I died a lot but spent a while exploring the whole place, it was fun and felt dangerous. That area is still in the game but it’s no longer full of elites.
That feeling of danger and adventure does seem to be missing in current wow so I agree with you OP.
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Wandering into Decolace 5 or 6 levels too low, taught me how to play Hunter better. My pet would die on every pack of hyenas, but the XP was so good! That was way back in the day. Those days are long gone now.
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Old WoW: Zones are difficult, providing a challenge. Levelling and gearing allows player to overcome challenge. Questing is a pillar of the experience.
New WoW: Zone are scaled to your power. Levelling and gearing scales enemies up, defeating the purpose of those mechanics during the leveling experience. Questing is a chore to endure before the game starts at level cap.
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Yeah the warlock quests were great.
Don’t forget the random lvl 50 worgen in duskwood
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