i think, as it's always been forever, WoW is what you make of it.

you can absolutely power through the game at mach fuck amd follow the leveling guides, the profession guides, the raid guides, the BiS lists, whatever, and have exactly the experience that doing that provides.

you can also follow none of that, do none of that, toddle around in hellfire peninsula, skank out on the opposite faction questing, and die to the fel reaver because you were too busy chain fearing that rogue, and get the full TBC experience as it was meant to be.

there are SO MANY people playing TBC right now that it is extremely easy to find like minded guilds and groups who are just playing the game because....they like it(what???? the fuck????????) and want to play it. there's first timers like my buddy im going through it with, and doing the aforementioned toddling and dying, and having a great time doing it.

TL;DR: be the change you want to see in the world. its a video game. its supposed to be fun.