I think the development of Korak’s Revenge should be reason enough to understand why people expected something different. And even if they expected 1.12, that does not mean they wanted it.
I think a vast majority of players when they think of “Vanilla Alterac Valley” conjure up memories of hour-long brawls…not pve-races. Whether or not that is reasonable for them to have expected or not…doesn’t change that is what they wanted.