Another reason may be declining populations on several servers. While I see Atiesh as a healthy mid pop realm their data might see a downward trend leading to a realm too small to effectively play on. If they do nothing a few months from now people might be complaining and asking why did you wait so long to do something. Classic is getting closer each month to a game that can only support a couple servers at most. And it will get worse with WoD
That being said Microsoft is one of the greediest companies I’ve dealt with. For example for years I’ve played solitaire occasionally. A few years ago the monetized it, forced you to play it on line with ads. This was offered for free in Windows 98. Nothing new was added since then, not even cosmetic changes like fancier decks to choose from or new firework animations when you win. Nothing is too trivial for Microsoft to monetize. For this and many other reasons when Microsoft bought Blizzard/Activision I laughed when people thought wow would get better. I knew it was going to get worse.