Hi! Thank you for this thread. 
My adventure with pet battles started almost as soon as with WoW overall – I have started in March 2014, at the tail end of Mists, and the first achievements followed not too long after.
A lot of the memories I had were tied to the old forums since removed, but I remember always being nitpicky about the details – for example, it was annoying to me that (Block) message applied to both preventing a full attack and 0 damage due to shielding.
I was with Xu-fu’s Pet Guides since the day 1, back in May 2015, still having a lot to learn at the time (does this ever end?), and while eventually I wasn’t able to keep up I am happy I can still call it my home. I’ve also got over 1000 posts on WarcraftPets though I have to warn you a lot of them are from the days bygone, and pretty cheesy. 
Otherwise, though, I am not suited for the media presence, and as the tech marched on, I had stayed in the shadows, focusing mostly on keeping an eye on the mechanics, relaying them for the Pet Sim development and reporting daily content on Discord (alongside Dragons for NA) between the end of 2022 and very beginning of 2025.
Now that’s of course a little bit of strutting around, something I rarely ever do. But with specific streaming and messaging platforms being regarded as primary form of engagement, I find it important to stress there’s more to the community than these things would have you believe.
Now to get back to the posted questions:
- If I am not testing something, usually I keep myself to a few dailies in order to level up my characters and pets. I’ll admit the latest tamers weren’t appealing to me at all, and unfortunately this will show
. This is mostly as I do prefer when you can level up other pets with them, something that hasn’t happened in a long while – and if there’s nothing to level up anymore, and the world quests rewards eventually become good for nothing – what is there even left to do except some speedrunning?
I also used to earn some gold back in WoD, maybe Legion, but don’t think it was more than 2 million total.
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The appeal that has been with me the longest is that I’ve always considered pet battles as an evergreen content, not even that horrible time the charms were split could stop me. You didn’t need to replace your pets as often as your gear, and if a new approach to an encounter had been found, it was a meaningful moment for that.
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I do love that even similar versions of the same pet get a little story to tell through their abilities. This, oddly enough, is one of the few things which have improved tremendously since MoP, which suffered from duplicate everything a lot. While the animations can be long or buggy, I think of them as fancy stuff happening, and some of them are even little time capsules such as Arcane Explosion or Death and Decay!
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I like some of the simplicity that isn’t really apparent unless you learn about other games – which the new players may not be aware of. It may be just 3 stats and 10 types, and for the most part, it seems enough! The actual stat distribution however is a little bit convoluted and even misleading at times.
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Now for what I don’t like other than I’ve just said above is, well, how little attention is paid overall. A lot of bugs and inconsistencies have been remaining around, some probably as old as the pet battle themselves, while most of the changes have added more sore spots, not less. Also as you’ve mentioned, despite relatively few elements, one still needs to throw a couple of addons at the newbies before the things can even get started. Which is quite unfortunate considering the current UI battle…
- MORE EXP! – including character experience/reputation; the tamers with just enough scripting to know when you’re gonna dodge or block them, but probably not much more than that; more integration with the world – things like sampling wildlife or getting bonus lumber can be done with a pet battle just as much as the old-fashioned ways, but unfortunately pet WQ-s are not narrated
I’ve probably overlooked a couple of things, but I am gonna head to bed for now.