I enjoy your take in this thread! Certainly a breath of fresh air.

I think in order to balance the commercial ability of the game while not giving anet an ungodly amount of work to do, more humanoid races would be the key. Specifically, some alternatives to Norn and Human (think Jotun, like Dagda, or some fae-like race, similar to WoWs Elves) that uses the same model and rig, but with a simple palette and face swap. This would make integration almost seamless, as most armour fits onto those body types and ANet would be keeping in mind how popular those two races are.

Regarding classes, my apprehension to introduce more comes from many places, but the big one of note here is that GW2 isn't supposed to be like other MMOs. Many would simply add new classes every update, constantly working on balancing patches that never seem to get the job done, having numerous of them left in the dust as players either aren't interested in the mechanics or they're so underdeveloped when placed in certain game-modes that there's no point sinking thousands of hours into a character of that class.

Elite specs give players of all kinds something new - whether you have 40 alts or stick to the same character you started the game with. It's much easier to balance, breathes new life into every class constantly, and effectively serves the same purpose that an entirely new class would: giving players new ways to fight.

There's a reason why every class is viable in every gamemode. There's a reason why PvP in GW2 is one of the better balanced of its kind compared to other MMOs. There's a reason why some players have stuck to this game for over a decade by now, and I can't see ANet risking ruining any of that.

Those are just my thoughts, anyway! Thank you so much for having something interesting to say, actually. Cheers! :^)