Nice mini review.
Worth mentioning Scenarios too, for me they have been one of the best things introduced, and have a 90% hit rate regarding content.
Also a fan of the way the some of the higher level gear has to be attained. No more sitting around in the cities waiting for the Dungeon Finder to pop, you can still rely entirely on drops from Heroics of course, but because of the various rep pre-requisites people are encouraged to get out and quest. A big plus in my eyes.
And yes, the new areas do look rather splendid. The NPC's are such a vast improvement, and just slam home how dated some of the older playable races are looking. I'm really looking forward to the new character models now.