Yeah, for me, questing and leveling were the best parts of the game. I could play solo or with a few friends. I was never in a decent guild, so I never saw a whole lot of earlier raid content.
Flightpaths at every corner have ruined the wonders of exploring the world and finding quests to do, and maybe running into other players, who you might team up with and get to know. Also, the ever-looming threat of world PVP made it exciting. Now nobody leaves SW or Org. You arrive at Darkshire, and it's a total ghost town. There used to be massive Horde and Alliance battles there on my server.
Now it's all a frenzied gear farming fest and inane trade chat.