...dungeons shove out other progression paths because of how the dungeon finder can instantly warp players into action. This was and still is a crippling problem for pre-WoD content.
It's a decade old theme park MMO and the pre-WoD content has not been maintained. If want people to play and re-play PVE, there has to be reasons to go back through it above and beyond experience for leveling. People who want to PVE for Loremaster or RP are doing that already. But even if you relatively enjoy PVE, leveling through the same zones gets old pretty quickly. Plus the old world is a mess lore-wise.
If they're making generic assets for the newer expansions, like all of the updated orc, human, draenei and ogre architecture, or even things like trees and various kinds of vegetation from WoD, those things should be back populated into the 1-60 zones. If the art assets in each zone are referenced, and they should be, a few junior world artists could be tasked with back populating newer assets into older content. Make the old world look new again, make it something people genuinely want to explore.
If they want people to play through the 1-60 zones to completion, they need to start providing reasons for doing so. Like updated transmog rewards, titles for completing certain arcs across x zones. If you complete Eversong Woods and The Ghostlands, you get the Champion or Defender of Silvermoon title. If you complete Westfall and The Deadmines you get a Defias Brotherhood transmog. If you complete Durotan and The Northern Barrens you get some Burning Blade themed weapon transmog. If you complete Stone Talon Mountains as a Horde you get a legit tabbard for Kromgar's Warband. If you play through the western and eastern Plaguelands you some Argent Dawn themed title. Whatever, just think of the arc for the zone and come up with some related transmog or title.
The Dungeon Finder and people using dungeons to level isn't the problem, the un-maintained, stale content is.
