The old talent system was trash as a steady progress reward for leveling. It treated us like morons at best and created unnecessary pitfalls for new players that stratified the player base between 'bads' and everyone else. There was no choice, barely any need to shift for a specific situation, and artificially locked away key aspects of your spec that were clearly main mechanics all so it could pretend to be deeper on the reward scale than it was. That resulted in your class sometimes playing like a weak and boring version of the archetype it was attempting to create until you reached a specific tier. I think that's far more damaging to the leveling experience than missing out on receiving a point every other level to put into a the same exact spot everyone else did while avoiding built in pitfalls that had no intrinsic value. Nothing about the old system was worth keeping while there's a significant amount of benefit from a system that provides meaningful albeit situational choices that cater to your style or the encounter.
I mean, are we honestly so mindless that we would trade a handful of meaningful choices for a boatload of meaningless ones just to feel like we're being rewarded for progression? I think we can all see through that, especially when there are countless other methods to provide that feeling of reward and increased power.
