I have confirmed that quests with unearned appearances in Cata and Vanilla unlocked those appearances with the patch. I’ve got all the Goblin starting zone appearances, the Twilight Highlands quests (one of which was bugged last time i tried, rip), and it seems like all the vanilla zones unlocked correctly.
I still have BFA, DF, and TWW appearances locked, even though the quests have been completed. Even quests I’m doing this week aren’t unlocking all appearances; there’s a quest in DF with a 2HS, a crossbow, and something else that my dracthyr didn’t unlock, and TWW stuff still shows that I need the appearances for classes/gear types I didn’t do it on.
Is there some reason for this somebody can quote, or is it bugged? I never saw any indication it was pre-BFA/whenever quests, so my assumption was that it would be every quest would unlock all appearances going forward. This has not matched my experience.