Hated Vash’jir with the fires of a thousand burning suns. Targeting was atrocious. And I have thalassophobia. So empty deep black pits of water gave me anxiety attacks.
And getting to Throne of Tides? I hated Blizzard last expansion so much for that. I had to be summoned or there was no way I could get there without hyperventilating and having another major anxiety attack.
Still hate it, well guess what all these years later with the underwater delves? They still can’t make it work 
I played a druid through it so all the under water element was cool to me. I know a lot of people disliked it though.
It looked very pretty for its time and still kind of does but I didn’t enjoy the swimming.
I really liked it. Mobs could be anywhere above or below you. But you could swim up or down too. You could run really fast. That came in super handy. The quests that you had to do inside the shell of the beast, not so fun as the rest. It became a slog. Seemed like you moved so slooooooow. All in all, thumbs up.
And final thought, Harlequin’s Bells must return to The Trading Post.
I loved it, but I love underwater zones in games. It’s an unpopular opinion, but I’ll own it.
It was …different enough to be interesting the first time through. After that it was the same as repeating any other zone.
My ranged characters did much better there than my melee.
I thought it was beautiful, love the art work. But I really can’t do that kind of multi-dimensional stuff. Whether it’s underwater or up in the air, I just can’t manage it well. So it’s very frustrating.
Loved it on my casters, hated it on melee – it’s just too difficult to fight hand-to-hand underwater. The area was fun, questing good and eye candy beautiful.
Love it. One of my favorite zones. Took me years to work up the nerve to take out the whale shark lol.
For extra creepy vibes, grab some inky black potion. (Not recommended if you have anxiety issues with it.)
Loved it. The art and music teams knocked that zone out of the park, in my (ever so humble) opinion.
Then again, I don’t play any melee characters…
I enjoyed it once through, but it had the same problem as all of the cata zones in that the storyline was absolutely lockstep. There were no side quests and no possible variation in how you went through the zone so once you had done it, you had done it and doing it again on a different toon was and is pointless.
I liked it a lot. I don’t know that it was as repayable as some others, but it was a new experience and showed a lot of creativity. My question from your post, however, is what original plans were cut?
I’m honestly kinda neutral on it. I don’t like it but I don’t dislike it.
I actually liked it. Interesting concept having a completely underwater zone. Music was pretty good, too. I’m disappointed we never got the Abyssal Maw raid that was promised to be parallel to the Firelands.
It’s actually my favorite zone in wow
I like underwater stuff. I think it’s a huge missed opportunity
I really liked Vash’jir 
it was a lot of fun! I liked the underwater element and it looked pretty. ^,^
It was pretty interesting and I enjoyed it on my first playthrough and whenever I’d herb, but it’s not something I’d want to replay. I recall struggling a lot with finding the correct level for certain quests and end up aggroing 10000 naga before I found it 
you must not do much in wow.
there are super annoying underwater delves. also a hyper annoying underwater daily/weekly quest.
addressing the op: hated that zone because it was dog water to play in. they refused to fix the bugginess of playing underwater yet keep trying to force it.