I quit early into phase three, came back for TBC. Currently in a guild with a bunch of TBC babies all boosted. Over a hundred of em on grobbulos, almost all of them went to community as the reason they wanna play classic. We’ve seen playerbase die consistently for months due to the “lack of community” as its “borderline impossible” to find leveling groups as a dps new to classic. The boosts IMO are the best thing blizzard could have done to fix the problem THE PLAYERS WHO ARE MAGES created.
Obvi not all mages, but this is a very real thing and classic andys like to poo on it, but it might just keep the servers populated for long while.
The mount/items/hearth i dont agree with, but the boosts are the best idea blizzard has had since classic release.