Allow me to enlighten you.
WoD has had a content gap for 13-14 months give or take, since patch 6.2, and that's the only patch and real content we had since 6.0 launched In late 2014, (6.1 will not count, as It was not a content patch, but simply a selfie/garrison mini patch with nothing useful).
We had and saw people trying to return to WoW which I take a personal Interest of documenting In a link I'll post below. The key word Is "tried" as more then half of these Vanila/TBC/Wrath players who were told "Oh WoW's great again, lets go play again" were not able to access their accounts for one reason or another.
Across these forums, WoW forums and even a few others I saw people complaining about one of a few things when trying to return to WoW and among those was:
1. Unable to access account, was hacked, please help.
2. Couldn't combine account with Battle.net (As before battle.net and WoW account was separate)
3. I was banned/suspended before, please release me It's been 7-10 years (This one being the least posted)
4. People had gotten their accounts, but not their characters... which was a big turn off for them.
Let me just jump on the 4th one to explain that like me, a 11 year long player of WoW we value our characters In a sense that we have Items, weapons, armors, trinkets or otherwise that no other player can have anymore, and that makes us feel awesome, we played the game before, we have these items, no body else could...
And most people who tried to return to WoW were denied their nostalgic character and items one way or another, even despite being offered to start a trial or a new account, and new freely boosted characters - you see that doesn't matter, most such players will not play WoW once they've realized Blizzard could not take care of their accounts In the 7-10 year long period of their account being Inactive or hacked without them knowing.
So yes, "Returning player hype" Is nonexistant due to Blizzard unable to keep their accounts Intact after such a long time. Which by now should tell people how badly Blizzard Is taking care of their playerbase, the hardcore or casual kind.
Now In my case, I play WoW but If you read my signature below you'll know I was delayed In that sense, my real account I had for 10 years was hacked, and banned, very obvious step and a good one on Blizzard's part. Yet... after proving I was the owner of the account they still refuse to give me back my account for no apparent reason at all, and I'm not the only one. For some reason since WoD they've banned so many people for such bizzare reasons It's no wonder players who either didn't play or play don't feel like Blizzard can help them properly anymore with Customer Support like this.
I made a secondary account, with like two characters... but I feel less then hyped for WoW now, why? My account Is gone, my favorite items, my rare items, my characters, I had side-characters now, they're less fun, they're new, It feels like I'm playing an Inferior version of WoW due to playing on a secondary account (Which I pay for WoW tokens only). It's bizzare. I miss my priest with the Benediction staff you cant get anymore, the Original Quel'Serrar sword (You can get It now but... mine was the original and much harder to get and more rewarding to get). Various armor pieces you can't get anymore, trinkets and other items, achivements of course, and just general progress on the first account you have.
http://s1077.photobucket.com/user/Th...?sort=3&page=1
Feel free to check the gallery of people mistreated, banned or unable to be serviced by Blizzard properly when they tried to return to WoW.