Going to split this up;
People have been crying since Wrath that we want (granted not all) more of the older elements that made up wow, such as how we used to have to grind in vin. Grind everything, from hours of killing one type of mob to advance one skill level in a prof, to having to spend hours, some people days just to gain a level before moving to the next zone.
Then we had WoD, mass sub cancellations I myself for the first time in a decade (Although that was to do with 6.1 main highlight being fucking selfies) but others because there was nothing to do ingame but sit in garrisons, farm nodes, send out followers. People were crying out for more content, more things to do.
In legion we have that, a combination of world quests and artifact progression is the way they get us out into the world. Now, if I can take you back another flash back, I'm sure you'll remember on this very site when artifacts were announced, there was a massive up roar about it. Two things were causing this, one, iconic weapons were coming back (notably the ashbringer) for the players to have, this annoyed some players as they had the original version (i.e. corrupted ash or windfury). The second reason was because we'd have a single weapon in the entire expansion. No more drops from bosses, no more getting that awesome one from end bosses which had a awesome x mog skin (e.g. blackhand). People were annoyed by, I include myself in this, I find there's nothing more satisfying loot wise than getting a new, bigger, more bad ass weapon. I lost my shit in ICC 25 on my lock when the Staff dropped from Deathwhisper. We don't get that in legion.
Now at this point you can argue I'm making your argument for you, however, lets take the above mentality of the second opinion (no more drops, pissed people off, nothing to aim for etc). How do you think people would re act to finding out they completed their weapon before the first major content patch. Hell, some people before karazhan (I could be wrong, was it just before or just after?). People would bitch, bitch in the masses, it would happen.
I do agree blizzard should have been more clear about how you do it, and possibly had a different system in place for upgrading the weapon. Off the top of my head, you could base it on dungeon completion, normal and heroic dungeons are x amount of normal traits, LFR first major trait, Normal second, Heroic third, Mythic 4th. But again, two issues, one people would be done quite quick and two some people wouldn't get full traits. I do think we have the best all around system for leveling the artifact, it just has flaws.
But to sum up, we have to have some sort of progression system for the artifacts that's going to last the entire expansion. Blizz have said they didn't want anything like whats happening now, Maw runs constantly, and that's being stopped.
[/QUOTE]On top of that, the artifact system takes completely away all the awesomeness of legendary weapons like the Ashbringer. It doesn't hurt those with made-up artifacts that were shat out of nowhere just to give an artifact for each spec. But weapons like the Ashbringer? Another piece of great lore ruined.[/QUOTE]
I half agree with this, but at the same time I'm not fussed, I've said it on the forums before, when I play I consider myself the main character in the story, so naturally I do want everything. I would love to x mog the new corrupted ashbringer on to my DK, I'd love to x mog illidans glaives on to the DH, I'd love to x mog shadowmourne on to my 2h classes. Blizzard are right, if they did allow that, every tom dick and harry would be running around with it. But at the end of the day I really don't give a flying fuck what other people look like ingame. I focus on my characters only. This isn't to say I don't interact or act like a dick, I just really don't care if I walk into SW and see 50 2h classes all wearing a variation of ashbringer