I would say its indisputable that Retail is a better game than Classic - by almost every measure. It has better graphics, more content, more things to do, more balanced pvp, more and better story elements, more interesting dungeon system, more polished raids, etc, etc, etc.
But Classic is more fun. Why? I think one reason: Retail is like playing a game with every cheat code enabled.
- God Mode: never worry about dying while fighting mobs, you are now unkillable.
- Map Hack: don’t worry about where anything is, just follow the dots this cheat code puts on your map.
- Greed Mode: epic loot literally falls from the skies while you walk around.
- etc. but you get the point.
And the result is, you simply do not care about anything in retail. Who cares about combat when you faceroll? Who even reads quests anymore? When was the last piece of loot you were excited to get?
A possible fix? I think if one feature was also to take blame, its Addons. They are where most of these cheat codes originated - they became so popular that Blizzard choose to add them as part of the default UI. Without addons most of these cheat codes wouldn’t exist, and you also wouldn’t have other systems that are far removed from rpgs, such as the crazy number chasing that damage meters cause.
Just my thoughts. Agree or Disagree?