There wasn’t an old fashioned way because nothing like covenants has existed 
unless you mean class spec, which was only gated by gold.
Yeah, there was, through grinding and earning stuff. Players aren’t fond of that idea anymore.
So lock them behind gold and not time. Where in classic was there a choice that needed a 2 week waiting period to renege on?
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Fire is only great in high keys. Mobs must have enough HP to absorb an entire combust/ignite. Tanks must pull huge packs so the ignite can spread to as many mobs as possible. The mage must have mastery corruption, Lucid Dreams, Rune of Power, Hyperthread Wristwraps, and Blaster Master x 3.
A fire mage doing a 10 - 15 where the tank is pulling one pack at a time is below average.
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From the shadowlands blue update:
our goal was for the answer to “what do you play?” in Shadowlands to be “Kyrian paladin” or “Venthyr paladin” rather than just “paladin.”
Players already say “ret pally” or “boomkin” or “blood dk”, because they play what they prefer and not what theyre locked into. If they want to play another spec then they have to gear for it - boom, there’s your work and grind. No artificial time-gating. The “meaningful choice” is the player’s agency to play what they want and not what theyre told they must stick to.
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This. So much this. Anyone who’s played the game for awhile has an identity already.
I’m a healer. I main Mistweaver. I like monk. I play for the Horde. I love the blood elf story and even have a transmog set called “Pride of Silvermoon.”
I use all of these things to build my identity in game. I have discussions about the best race among my guildies. All of these things are part of Warcraft, not part of any singular expansion. We use them to define us, without needing player power to be tied to them.
#PullTheRipcord
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As someone who played forb frost for much of early 8.3 I was unaware of how this class worked. Your insight was helpful and relevant to the discussion I was referencing. Thank you.
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You can switch covenants.
Maxing your character means no choice. There will always be one best set of talents/abilities, and one best set of gear. You can take the “best” covenant for ST damage, or play what looks best and still have the best AoE or best PvP abilities. Every ability makes your character more powerful, but you can’t always have the best for every situation.
Also, you can switch covenants. Just not for every encounter in the raid. Sorry.
You’re right, having even semi locked covenants means I have no choice. I’ll just take whatever performs the best on paper, and never risk trying anything else out in dungeons to see how the new abilities play off different talent setups, because the risk just isn’t worth it.
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If you have four choices, and one is objectively the best, does it matter if you can actively switch between A, B, C or D if C is the superior choice in virtually every situation?
By this definition, aren’t there equal levels of choice at play here?
So lock covenants to the raid
But I can have the spec I prefer between Mythics, raid, PvP, questing, leveling…
The fact that people want to switch means there’s a choice. If there were one standout ability everyone would just take it and move on. You choose which type of content you want to be “maxed out” for. You’ll still be fine in all others, just not the best possible.
Quite possibly the biggest group of crybabies I have seen on these forums. You all should be proud.
You have to choose.
Some classes do have an obviously correct choice for all situations, some don’t. Why are you advocating for more disparity between classes?
I am very proud.
I’m a Rogue, I don’t have to lol.
Some people want to try new things. Some people just don’t like having the power tied to a Covenant they have no personal interest in. Some people don’t want to make characters just to M+ on, because they primarily focus on raiding.
As it stands, regardless of whether Covenants are locked or not, anything that isn’t Necrolords is a hard-sell for Warlocks considering that Decimating Bolt is absolutely busted.
And that choice is currently flexible. The design of the game since wrath has been to make retail more flexible and accessible. Can a dev explain why the sudden change to less flexibility?
Ya know, if the devs came out and said this instead of hiding behind the “meaningful choice” non sequitur then I’d respect the decision to keep them as is. Taking away player agency isn’t meaningful ¯\(ツ)/¯ if I wanted to commit to a choice, i’d play classic.