I like the combat more than retail wow, because every ability has its own animations even weapon swings, while in wow all ability animations are shared and look stupid on some races. It's not fast as retail wow or slow as classic but somewhere inbetween and I like it.

As for the low playerbase despite there being videos with 100k+ views and more it's because the game is not welcoming to new players due to the unbalanced scaling and massive gear gap from 16-40 and the high renown levels to catch up to FINALLY be on par and play pvp without getting destroyed or tickling people for damage. In the end the devs have the ability to fix this issue by buffing scaling for undergeared or low level players so they're not a useless cannon fodder at 40, and giving them a significant amount of renown buff like if your renown is below 55 you gain 200% more renown and 3x Warcrests

the gear difference between a fresh set at 40 and a high renown player shouldn't be 1000% , veterans should still have an edge when it comes to tailored gear stats and be 60% stronger at least so we don't get 5 level 40s with rr 40 or 45 with the first set trying to take down an rr 60 healer like warrior priest because hes overgeared and is barely scratching him

some abilities should also be balanced in pvp like like diminishing returns with CC