Let me preface this by simply saying:
I completely respect that others may disagree with this idea. I can easily see where people might disagree, but I’m also happy to hear your thoughts as well.
Speaking PURELY for myself; while I found the idea of Season of Discovery to be super exciting, I also found it a little… unclear as to what it was supposed to be. I do think a little more communication would’ve been great, particularly now that SoD is so far into its life that there are lots of rewards that I think are probably unattainable.
But hey, people seem to be enjoying it and having a great time overall, so that’s great!
For me personally, I would probably be super motivated to play SoD (or any future “Seasons”) if I felt like new items’ appearances would also carry over to Retail’s transmog system.
Reason being; I already find it pretty daunting to try and juggle both Retail and (Vanilla) Classic. I’ve always been extremely slow when it comes to leveling (even back when I was a world-ranking raider), so even in Vanilla Classic, it’s been several months and I’m only lvl 40 (lots of IRL responsibilities to juggle, as I’m sure others can relate to).
So the idea of leveling and playing a whole 'nother character, with a completely separate existence, reward track, and whose fate is still ultimately a bit unclear, feels pretty daunting. I don’t want to spend potentially dozens or even hundreds of hours playing up a character that’s ultimately going to be left in a dusty closet.
Being able to also carry over these cool looking recolors, mounts – hell, even titles and retired stuff, like the Scarab Lord stuff or Corrupted Ashbringer – would be the ultimate motivation for me. Because then I would know “hey, even if this character never ultimately goes into any future seasonal content, or doesn’t transfer directly to Classic or Retail, I’ll still have something to show for my effort”.
Of course, having just missed out on the AQ gates opening, that would be a bit of a bummer to discover after the fact. But you can certainly bet, if there was ever a new season, or even a “re-opening” of AQ, I would absolutely be investing in SoD!
Anyways, that’s just my personal take. As I said, feel free to disagree, and I certainly won’t take any offense to anyone that feels it would have some kind of negative impact on SoD as a whole. Just sharing my own thoughts.