They can’t write good stories any more, don’t expect good main story, just good side quests.
It still feels like this expansion was too early (as usual) and many classes could have done with more time in the oven (druids and rogues)
On the talents - they realised that they can’t just keep giving us stuff, so they have switched to having some kind of ‘borrowed power’ that gets taken away after the expansion - I think the hero talents are another example of this? Some are shit though and I imagine it’s going to be balance hell (rip boomkins too lol), as they never seem to learn with this stuff.
It’s the endgame group content that actually sells wow for many people (me), so as long as that works and it’s ok balance wise (or alts can be leveled easily) then it’s probably ok for quite a few people though.
Disclaimer: have not got early access, have bought the expansion, but left it really late to decide.