This will be my last response to you and these boards.
Yes.
Unequivocally, resoundingly, YES
Blizzard knew people played Classic as a waiting-room for TBC, including the changes and improvements and QoL and the warts-n-all it brought.
Blizzard knew people played both Classic and TBCC as a waiting-room for Wrath, for the same reasons.
Blizzard knows there are even people waiting on Cata, MoP, even Legion.
Now they pull “Spirit of Classic” garbage after adding in Retail features like Same Faction BGs and Boosts. The very thing that caused people to up and quit Classic as we moved into TBCC is being offered yet again, with a more appreciable reward for doing so, while simultaneously Blizzard suddenly decides that we need to go hard in the paint for some amorphous Vanilla-purist claptrap about “Spirit of Classic”? The last time they trotted that out was during the #nochanges period of Vanilla as they tweaked and modified to keep ahead of player behavior relative to the experiences.
And now we go backwards, and if we keep getting new expansions, each of those will be even further removed from what they were.
I don’t give a rat’s ass if they fervently believe in their heart of hearts that LFD somehow “killed the social fabric of the game” because, as Birmingham said himself, in some fantasy reality that has never existed on this planet ever people really make good friends figuring out who is going to fulfill what role and teaching/guiding each other to the dungeon.
Blizzard committed to authenticity first.
Then Blizzard committed to authenticity second with changes that made sense to adapt to the modern gaming audience that was playing Classic and TBCC.
Now Blizzard is committing to authenticity second with changes that make might make sense to adapt to an amorphously defined group of WoW fans with Opinions™ about the Evil-Evil-Retail™.
TLDR: Blizzard is incompetent and run by morons, and I’m done.