Now see, I feel the exact opposite way. For me, WotLK has been a bad take on Lord of the Rings; Icecrown even looks like Mordor in winter. WotLK has finally dealt with Arthas, who's been lurking about as Villain #1 since WC3. It doesn't help that his presence has turned him into kind of a giant pussy, but hopefully that will be resolved in the Icecrown patch.
With that plot line put to rest, we'll finally be moving past the story arc established 7 years ago, and onto the 'next chapter' of WoW. We'll be dealing with an enemy that's never been seen before save a few cinematics and a novel. For me, that's exciting. Deathwing has already wrecked the world and it's pretty clear that he's insane, so what else will he do?
It's also very exciting to see all of the old zones being destroyed, and what secrets they might give up (and the Archeology profession seems to suggest the answer will be "a lot"). There's lots of little nooks and cranies in the old world that really aren't explained and have a lot of potential. I think that was missing in Outland and Northrend, and hopefully we'll see some of that exploration come back. I actually like the Old World more than either expansion; it just seems more interesting and lived in, while Outland felt like a theme park and Northrend just seemed very spread out and bland (though pretty).
Finally, from a gameplay perspective, Blizzard seems to be moving in the right direction, removing the clumsiest stats, merging the functionality of others, and cutting a lot of the fat via Talent Masteries. I honestly haven't been this excited to play WoW since I first started playing, and can't wait to see what my favorite zones are reduced to or what the talent trees are going to look like. I suppose hope springs eternal, but given the changes we've already heard about, I like to think maybe they'll get most of the classes right this time, without any single class being excessively over or underpowered.
Remember that before TBC, there was effectively one tanking class, several classes had specs that didn't even work, and some classes were nothing more than glorified buff bots (paladins, shamans and locks, to be specific.) WotLK has made even more progress, but the introduction of Death Knights, I feel, has set them back quite a bit in terms of balance.
Hopefully, Cataclysm will see a greater level of balance than we've seen before. This next expansion, in more ways than one, seems to be Blizzard shaking things up. I'll keep paying my subscription fees to see what happens next.
