Talents were more of an illusion. Most people picked the same exact talents for raiding or pvp. If you wanted to switch, have fun spending a crap load of gold (which was way harder to get) to switch between em. You have way more variety today, the system is just presented differently.
Weapon skills were dumb and unnecessary. "oh cool I got a new axe, let me go hit boars for 4 hours until I can use it properly"
I'm failing to see the "great" things.