Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing about Classic is that it doesn’t work well if one is trying to race to cap and raid readiness. Leveling and gearing up is as much “the real game” as endgame raiding is. As such, it works a lot better when played at a relaxed pace with less of a focus on the destination, as the majority of players did back in 2004-2010.
Huh, this surprises me, as I tried it around 2010-2012, and I found the first 20 levels or so so dull that I only managed to get two characters up to lvl 20 or so and then dropped it forever. I guess my mistake might've been in trying to approach it as a typical RPG, while I should have instead tried to find some players to befriend in the game ??
Not that it was ever particularly difficult relative to other games, but in the original game and TBC, levelers often found themselves in dicey situations that kept things from getting too dull. In WotLK and Cata, baseline player power saw a steep increase and the world was largely defanged, making it so levelers rarely faced significant danger.