That's fair, I had forgotten the timeline, but Classic was more of a reaction to Nostalrius, and still, overall, is an indication of how much "modern" WoW has failed the player base. I started in vanilla, played every expac up to pre-patch for BfA before quitting in disgust. Since Wrath the game has been on a slide. Legion was ok (my god the story has lost its way, stop with demons, it's boring!) but the best things about that expansion Blizzard abandoned for the next expansion.
By level 60 you have so many off-GCD abilities, and WoW has pruned so much from rotations, that the gameplay is far more engaging at endgame in XIV. The GCD criticism is lame; it's valid at early levels but later on, not at all. Encounter design is better in XIV, too.
I do think the post-2.0 main story quests are awful. Heavensward MSQs were great but there are a hundred quests between 2.0 and 3.0, most of them just mind-numbing.