I agree that WoW is about the progress. It’s like hamster and the wheel, you need something to keeps you playing. It’s good to have something to hunt and be occupied, but sometimes it can be hard if you skip the part.
For an example, I started to play WoW in 2019 for the first time and I had the best gaming experience in my life. I played all the way to Naxx when RL came up and due to a lot of responsibilities and not much free time, had to stop playing. When this settled a bit and ai came back, it was already a TBC, not sure which phase, but I felt like I missed the big part of the game. And as someone who was playing it for the first time and wanted to experience and explore everything I didn’t feel like I can continue playing it. So I moved to Retail, to play with friends where I could explore a lot of the old content without having to wait for the expansion, because I was afraid I will have to stop playing again and lose the pace. But Retail is not my coup of tea. Too competitive, complicate and doesn’t look like the game I think WoW should be.
When they announced the SoD, I was very happy to get back to the old world, but for me, it was too much changes. When they announced Fresh Anniversary, I was so happy because that meas “almost no changes” to the game that I enjoy.
I am all about the progress and hope they will continue it to Wrath, or make the TBC/Wrath ERA, but would also like to get a chance to copy my character to the current ERA, mostly because that is the version I enjoy the most and I prefer more stale games due to fear of loosing the pace with other people. ERA is like a safe room for me.