Can you provide a link to the statement suggesting that is the only thing influencing them how classic wow is going to be? If I recall, they are adding stage content (which includes updating the vendor tables) in order to achieve a more classical experience.
How does including the unarmored mounts affect the eligible inclusion of other items similar to its power influence? If you think they would further the classical experience, you should give feedback on them.
Should I level a dwarf (dat frost resist) for naxx or?
The player’s knowledge about other aspects of the game ( future raid content and class tuning) is already establish; there will be many hindsight factors that will influence their initial start and progression through each phase.
The Winterspring frostsaber says subjective.
If Blizzard wanted them gone, they would’ve outright removed them (even if they were in your possession). But, the players who acquired them before their retirement still got to keep them long after (they even made a FoS acknowledging them on retail).
There was a vendor in vanilla that allowed players to exchange their unarmored mounts for the new armored ones. imo, not having unarmored mounts at all would be less authentic than having them both.