So I just hit level 85 on an alt in wow. I went to get the ilvl 365 cloak from the firelands quests. Not only was there a lot of cutscenes, but I couldn't skip them (I could cancel them), couldn't talk in chat during them, and I couldn't make any choices. Not to mention as a healer I didn't have a companion to help me kill things so it took forever.
I get what you are saying, for people that don't care at all about story (who really does, not just the ones that claim it after being used to wow), this probably will not take them away from wow. But I think you were a little unfair about the combat abilities comment. There are a lot of abilities, and my jedi shadow's rotation was more involved than my rogue's (at max level in both cases).