I played on a few but Dark Iron was my stomping grouds for a long while. I totally agree about cross realm BG's and instancing almost ruining the game. There are a lot of things Blizzard did in the name of making things better that slowly but surely as you say sucked the soul out of the game. Another huge example would be Raid Finder and Dungeon finder. At one point you actually had to make the long trek to dungeon entrances. Hence the carnage in Blackrock Mountain.