A lot of people found titanforging to be a motivation to play. I looked forward to the chance of a 5 or 10 ilvl upgrade on a piece of world quest gear that I already had. If there was no chance of an upgrade, that was just less content to play.
Of course there were elites who were upset that they felt forced to continue playing because there was always a chance at an upgrade. There were elites that had ultra high titanforged perfectly optimized gear they got from endlessly spamming high keys who were upset that this meant they weren’t going to be able to get ilvl upgrades in mythic raiding. And of course there were elites who felt that any 5 ilvl upgrade a casual got randomly meant the game was broken, because nobody but elites should randomly get upgrades.
You got what you wanted, which is people having less reason to play and leaving the game because of it.