Loads of people seem to confuse skill and knowledge in a video game.
Reaching level 60 takes no skill. It takes knowledge of what are the most efficient ways of reaching it.
Vanilla in 2004 was obviously harder than current classic, but only because of the poor and lack of equipment, low resolution monitor, laggy pc, ball mouse, poor internet connection, server issues and many more. 15 years later. The game didn’t change, only the equipment got better. Everything in vanilla (2004) and current classic is the same, except the equipment, plus the fact that there are a lot more people playing the game nowadays. This is the only reason why it took months to kill ragnaros in vanilla, meanwhile it took 5 days in current classic. The bosses have basically no mechanics to them or so little that you can basically not worry about them, like move out of one or two things and that’s it. Classes also have barely any abilities, no rotations to learn and keep track of. Retail WoW is harder than both vanilla classic and current classic. Even with all the modern equipment and in-game add-ons, it takes much effort to master a class. People say every class is easy to play. Yes they are easy to play and output enough damage to get through most of the content, but what they don’t seem to realise is that in order to maximise the damage output you need to focus, keep track of rotations while avoiding/executing numerous mechanics during a fight perfectly due to the number of one-shot mechanics during the fight. Also applying numerous tricks to increase dps and to facilitate the progress of the fight, which can only be achieved through multiple wipes and tries. None of this are needed in classic wow both vanilla and current. While you need to grind out the best in slot gear in retail, in classic you can get by with having most type of gear you get throughout leveling your character. While in retail, if a player dies during the fight, it’s such a loss for the team that in most cases it ends in a wipe due to lack of damage or healing, and most definitely a wipe if the one that died was a tank. In classic wow you can easily do the fight with a group that is far from being full, and also if half the group is dead and the boss is only at 50% health, no problem.
These are facts that nobody can argue with, and if you do, you are a hopeless fighter.
Now to move on to the personal opinions. The people seem to have such sentiment towards vanilla wow that it influences their logical point of views to the point that they claim that the game itself was harder in vanilla than it is now. They value those times so much more than the time now for an infinite amount of reasons that are both connected to the game, and are completely irrelevant to the game. The game has gotten harder and there is no doubt about it. Classes have more abilities, bosses have more mechanics and figuring to do. Most boss fights have mechanics that require multiple players to work as a team in order to beat it and if one of them messes up then it’s a wipe. That very factor of having to rely on one another makes things extremely difficult. The co-ordination of multiple players carrying out a single mechanic makes something a hundred folds more difficult than having one person execute a mechanic.
It is pretty obvious that people just have this intangible value for something from the past which can not be replicated ever, and because they cherish this feeling so much they take it a personal attack whenever someone tries to even start a debate over it which in their mind, they take it like you offend them.
In the end, everyone knows this but many refuse the reality.