I am also upset with my characters being deleted. while they do exist on WoTLK which i never wanted them there and never consented to move them there. I too was away and never knew about the cloning or i would have done it since the only classic i wish to play is Vanilla and like you have spent countless hours and those first 2 years pouring time into those characters to have them just deleted like that. If enough of us can raise our voices, hopefully something can be done to restore them.