Arathi basin and darkshore stuff was great in BFA, but making old content relevant again would require another Cataclysm and quite possibly all brand new zone questlines per zone.
In an ideal world, the old world and new world would exist concurrently.
Maybe WoW needs a Threads of Fate leveling experience starting at level 1 and just dot the old world with Legion/BFA esque WQs, mini invasions, etc
I honestly feel all they would need to do is make new challenges/achievments/toys/pets/transmongs/mounts. Add them in patches frequently and abundantly and scatter them across all of Azeroth. Allow players to be overwhelmed with things they can strive to try and do for their character again. Not bog them down with chores like daily quests anima grinds/mythics.
I totally get that. I mean, reliving zones you’ve already done the quests in? Yuck, right? I was seriously pleasantly surprised that i am totally enjoying the barrens again, enjoying stonetalon again. I’ve done those quests a few times back in the day.
I think I am also enjoying the aspect of getting excited to hit another level so that I can figure out where that next little talent point goes. I find it so fun for some weird reason.
I seriously was dreading the grind. Especially since now I don’t have a mount until level 40, but thankfully, I picked a shaman, so it’s currently less bad with spirit wolf. That all said to say, I am enjoying the fact that I actually HAVE to read the quests, not just pick it up and wait for it to pop up on my map as to where to go. And there’s actually a ton of funny things said in those quests.
So again for me, the whole experience with classic has been fun, for the second time. It’s not a race to the end, and I am enjoying that. 
It does seem a bit odd that WoW has such a significant set of completed art assets that they rarely return players to. They could do rotating zone events like they did with Legion invasions over places like Kharkov, but they would need to continually incentivize players to go back with various updating rewards.
this poor panda is trying SO hard to contribute meaningfully to this topic but just can’t figure out how to lolol
They should do away with instancing and just build in the open world that exists. Instancing sucks, it’s what started the downfall of Everquest a long time ago when the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion was released.
In WoW there’s a huge world, put new content in the world that exists already.
It isn’t just a WoW issue. I see the same thing in FF14 when I mess around leveling over there. Main cities are bustling, but go back to leveling zones and it feels like a single player game.
People may just level in dungeons, BGs, boost, or may just have different favorite zones to level in.
For me, WoW feels really full in the starting areas up until about mid level. If you start Alliance and play through Elwynn, Westfall, Redridge, Duskwood, there’s tons of people. Starts to taper off a bit after that level range it seems, on both factions.
Yeah, and people complained to the high heavens about having to travel back to the old zones.
Blizz can’t win, ever, nothing is ever right, nothing is ever good enough.
Maybe people like it that way?
Do you think many players would be super happy if they needed to farm mats from Outland, northrend, and Pandaria to make a potion for Shadowlands?
Or will they cry that Blizzard is trying to pump up their “time played metrics” by making them travel to 3 old continents for their mats?
If the rewards were worth the time spent…then players will do anything.
Doing something because it has rewards desired or is efficient and being happy/enjoying something are two entirely different things.
For example, I’ve met players who have been trying for specific mounts for months. They hate it, but they still do it because they want it. For them the reward is worth it even though they have spent months accomplishing nothing towards their goal.
Did I play solo entirely? I said I still get a group thru Dungeon Finder.
When I am farming for my herbs, I want it with few people on the map so I could solo the goodies. Then along the way, I saw a rare… elite level 62 mob which I know I cant solo (though some of them I could solo now). I would stop… open a dungeon finder and get a group. Then I pop out to that layer with lots of people to kill it. Then I get my loot then leave my group and I go back to my solo layer to continue my herbing.
What’s the difference of that from old school? On old school, if I am on server with full of people, it’s nightmare to get herbs becoz of tagging… waiting for long respawns. On old school, if I am on server with low population and that rare mob appeared, I would shout on that zone channel endlessly looking for somebody to help me kill it. Becoz of low population, I may not get enough people. So this old school scenario, just gives inconvenience. I dont want to spend my time on this World PvE for a long time becoz I have tons of things to do on my list.
I still Raid and I still play dungeons… I group when I see an elite that I cant solo. I DONT ENTIRELY SOLO. I’ve been playing WoW since Vanilla. Yeah, I was hardcore no life back then. Old school inconvenience is okay with me then. But I am Casual now. I dont want to spend a lot of time to freaking World PvE stuffs. Dungeon Finder is the best thing that WoW invented for Casuals. FYI. Why suffer if there is a system that is more convenient?
Just read above my posts.
I dont buy Shadowlands to play BFA like most people like you are doing. I know you would play Shadowlands on next expansion becoz you a frail player who cant beat the difficulty. You are waiting to get gear on next expansion to overgear Shadowlands then come back to Shadowlands. I am not a weak player like you.
Best part of ESO mega server is your entire raid team being in Vivec, but everyone is on a different layer so you just see phantom names surrounding you. 
God, it is painfully obvious you are younger than 12 years old.
Ya for sure uts the journey but I guess more players dont have an interest in the journey anymore so much as the reward, whatever that might be for that player, at the end.
I agree with everything you said for sure!
Its fun having to worry about over pulling or pats.
I pulled 6 murlocs with a retail paladin last night while seeing the difference in leveling as a reminder. Just what quests reward and all that no heirlooms. It got sketchy admittedly but I was able to heal and stun through it with half my mana left. I felt fairly comfortable during that pull and did others like it after. 8 might have been the more Classic experience though.
Retail and Classic are just 2 different worlds at this point and different experiences and I think, ignoring profit, it was easier to have 2 different experiences than make the retail experience like the older experience.
It would, as others have suggested, be cool to see more content for the older stuff but Im sure that gets messy and complicated for some.
Progression obsession has come to envelop a good majority of the playerbase thanks to the direction game development has taken since WotLK/Cataclysm, so the players who’d do as you’d suggest have mostly moved on by now, because if you don’t get with the program and chase a carrot like everybody else you’re an oddball.
This simply isn’t true. I play Legion/BFA content 90% of the time these days, and the cities and zones there always have lots of players in them, including many max level characters. Maybe, it’s just the Shadowlands content that people are avoiding.