I haven’t seen a big outcry in the Hunter forums to return to the Classic version of the hunter regardless of the class’ original intent. Most people here would like to return the the Wrath or Mists Hunter I think.
As far as Classic goes, there are a number of reasons people want to play it. One of my favorite things about Vanilla was that I could play alts without worrying about falling behind. I really enjoyed playing alts. I also enjoyed the fact that I knew exactly the gear I needed, and I could go out and get it (sometimes it was in dungeons - sometimes it was in raids - sometimes it was quest items). You didn’t have to worry about some random corruption or Azerite skill. There was no endless grind at the end of the game. If you’re goal oriented, then the ability to fill the BiS pieces or complete was incredibly satisfying. In addition, the leveling experience felt more full because it was a greater part of the game back then. It wasn’t necessarily a race to the top. People have lot more reasons than that too - community, quest difficulty, etc.
Unfortunately, the rotations were generally bland or boring. Even if you had a fun rotation, you couldn’t necessarily use all of your abilities in raid because of the 16 slot debuf limit on bosses (affliction warlocks were screwed in raid fights quite often, healers could overwrite each other’s hots). You were often forced into very specific roles in PVE. PVP was very unbalanced (at the faction level). There were a limited number of raid slots unless you were a healer.
I wasn’t really a big fan of Vanilla - especially Vanilla Hunters (mostly because of their dead zone and out of combat traps).
However, I would love to see TBC or Wrath come back. I didn’t like Hunters much before Wrath, but the devs fixed a lot of the issues from Vanilla. Raiding was a more fulfilling experience for most classes. You had a better idea what kind of gear was good. Flying was introduced. Classes could fulfill more roles.
In wrath, I think they finally got a handle on class design. I don’t think there was a bad spec in Wrath.
But you’re right. I prefer the current hunter over the Classic Hunter. Otherwise, if I could have my Hunter from ANY OTHER EXPANSION before Legion, I would. TBC (especially later in the expansion), Wrath, Cata, Mop, Mists, or even Wod.
What happened in Legion is really unforgivable. Instead of improving things like they normally did, they reworked entire classes and stripped fun abilities from everybody. Not sure if you remember, but they made traps MSV only in that patch! That was a very bad day for a lot of players - not just Hunters. But for people who played RSV - it was really sad. People were upset. There were more “I’m sad” posts than there were “I’m angry” posts. For the first time ever, “quitting the game” posts were up-voted (you could downvote at the time too).
I’m not sure how long you have been playing the game, or what class you played at the time, but if you were maining one of the seriously affected specs or classes, you already know what I mean.
In any case. To answer your question. Most Hunters aren’t “crying” to return to Classic.
