Sorry but this expansion, Dragonflight, has been the worst possible expansion of WoW history. No influencers have anything negative to say because nothing happened this expansion. If you keep doing this formula for the next 3 expansions, thinking a good storyline or good alt-friendlyness will make anyone care about this game, you are delusional.
We don’t want your M+ threadmill. We don’t want your seasonal resets with ilvl scaling. The formula sucks and we can tell.
Except I do think a good story and extreme alt-friendliness will be really strong incentives to get people to play again, because the gameplay itself is fine RN.
Personally I feel like the seasonal ‘resets’ are great - I get to progress my character again with new gear/effects and trinkets to strive towards that might make interesting changes to how I play, or some cool new interactions etc…
With things like catch up gear it’s really easy to get alts going if I feel like trying something new that looks interesting.
For people that wants different content, there’s leveling, achievement hunting, pet collecting/battling, mount collecting, transmog collecting, treasure hunting, world quests, LFG/LFR to get a taste or for lore reasons go through dungeons/raids…
Personally I’m almost exclusively a M+er and mythic raider with the occasional chilling hunting some achievs or mounts but I’m in the minority of the player-base, most people play casually and clearly they’re having a good enough time playing the game their way 
The gameplay is not fine. I understand that if your main focus of enjoyment happens to be the two things this game does well, you might assume that but it’s not correct to say it’s fine.
WoW retail is like a really bad movie at the moment. You can enjoy it for what it is, but still recognise the amateur craftsmanship on display. I too enjoy M+ to be fair. It’s the only thing I still do. But that’s because nothing else is worth doing.
You’ve got it right that casual players are the majority and they’re leaving. Because there’s nothing for them. I won’t go into the much detail to avoid this becoming a novel but suffice to say the numbers don’t lie.
Cosmetics is awful(all Disney style, ever scary one is just Disney in red color…) same with dungeons (only few were good)
M+ pool from last expansions are awful too idk why people like legion dungeons so much, nostalgia I guess
I kind of like the story, it’s relaxing with a nostalgic feel. Blue dragonflight reunion and the sitting dragon with dwarf visage at the ruby life pools were my fav part.
I’m just entering M+ scene so idk how it was before and how it can compare.
I also like the upgrade system and the catchup mechanics.
I disagree.
Doing nothing is not worse than doing something bad.
Dragonflight did not harm the game for the next years to come by introducing RNG legendaries, AP grind or borrowed power systems.
Instead, Dragonflight added enjoyable systems such as Dragonflying or the Trading Post, which will provide enjoyable content even going into the next expansions.
Long term, Dragonflight is better for the game than any of the past 3 expansions.
Weird take, maybe the influencers liked it? You’re welcome to disagree, but complaining that nobody else is complaining does feel odd.
My biggest gripe is that M+ balance is all over the place every patch and I can go from having an amazing time one week, to fearing to set foot in a dungeon the next.
Well, there was nothing to love in sl, yet, it was hated !!
I am not acquainted with any influencers that you talk about, but I’m glad that you are in accord with them. It’s always nice to have friends.
I disagree, though. There’s no treadmill in the latest iteration of M+, because you get gear so fast and with so little effort. And there’s also quite a lot happened (or was announced) that is nice to have. Solo Shuffles and future rated RBGs, Trading Post and dynamic flying, ease of cross-faction and cross-realm interaction, return of talent trees, regular and predictable patches with their roadmaps, future Warbands and future forms of solo progression. A bit controversial, but I also liked Augmentation and eager to see what other supports are coming next. Overall, Blizz did mostly good with Dragonflight and showed that they plan to continue this trend.
So let’s bring back Shadowlands and let them leave for another game with all the people following them and leaving this game bleeding like it has been in the past…. ….
I think in fact Dragonflight is one of the best expansions I’ve ever played, and I have played every expansion for WoW including vanilla.
It has a very good both system and graphics designs, and is incredibly polished with loads of new features that we haven’t seen since probably The Burning Crusade when flying mounts were introduced, and is hardly a copy-paste expansion like quite many has been.
PvP community has been great… on par with legion
however recent lack of healers and people leaving in pvp has made it stale
Its kind of OK but its also little bit too forgettable and stale. I hated shadowlands but atleast it had memorable moments in it.
Oh look… Another person who thinks they speak for others.
There is no ‘we’. There is ‘you’.
Also: I disagree. Shadowlands is WoW’s worst possible expansion imo.
DF isn’t the best, but it’s comfortably sitting just below Legion and MoP. So yeah. 
Stop saying WE.
Objectively, BFA was worse.
Shadowlands was bland and lame, but it corrected a lot of broken stuff, just like Dragonflight.
I think it’s an enjoyable expansion in many ways, or I’d not be here. I also think it’s a very inoffensive expansion, and purposely so.
If you really care what influencers do or don’t do then why should anyone care about your opinion? Is it even really yours?
Well, I’m not objective. I’m giving my opinion. And I enjoyed BfA’s overal experience more than expansions like Shadowlands or TBC or Cata.
BfA was disappointing overal, but only patch 8.3 made it horrible. Imo.
The zones and such were wonderful though (except Nazj and what they did to Uldum and The Vale) and I had a good time playing around in the world overal.
For instance:
Objectively Baldur’s Gate is a great game. It won a lot of awards.
I uninstalled it though after putting in many hours because I didn’t like the basic gameplay and where the story went after act 2. Subjectively it was a bad game.
And to players their own experience is all that matters. So looking at games subjectively is fine; as long as you don’t spread falsehoods and whatnot about it.
The gameplay is fine (just fine, tons of room for improvement ofc)
It’s the content that is lacking.
Like you said, because there is only raiding and dungeons really and there’s way to few of those for even a month of engagement imo.