I kept contemplating how futile achievement point hunting was, being a former "must have every obtainable point" carrot-chaser to realizing nobody really cares if you got 10 points for exploring the taint of some rotting forrest. I still occasionally go for a few here and there that seem interesting, but as I cross each of those off my list it seems narrower and narrower.
So that go me initially thinking about the concept of better incentives for achievement points (I know there have been thousands of conversations like this over the years since achievement points have been out, but hear me out). Give striking, noticeable incentives for getting certain time-consuming achievements (not just various metas).
And then I realized it didn't have to be held back by just achievement points. I'd have no problem with dailies at all if the reward was an exciting motivator. And currently, they're not exciting in the least. I remember grinding Netherdrake Eggs and Shatari Skyguard grinding and the like, and never really feeling the monotony I feel now.
But what about permanent things. The ability to re-roll rare, unique races sure to make your character stick out? I know there's an issue with gear-scaling, but I'm sure you can use skeletons of current races for other race models to bypass that.
Wouldn't the ability to re-roll Fel-Orc, Ogres, Ethereal, Drakinid, Arakkoa, and I'm sure hundreds that are just not coming to mind motivate you to do just about any level of grinding with a positive attitude?
Some could be obtainable by ridiculous achievement point numbers, others by ridiculous achievements or meta achievements, some by long quest/rep grinds, some by special battle-pet scenarios of noteworthy difficulty, maybe a near-impossible brawler's guild fight could yield another. But the point being the tasks would be so scattered, long, difficult, or combinations thereof that these races wouldn't 'overpopulate' realms; but create more diversity.
And racials would just be copied from current classes to preserve balance (just using racial terminology for same buffs/abilities for lore purposes). The additional races would be purely aesthetic, as they don't need to be anything else but aesthetic motivation.