Remove titanforging entirely, keep Warforging similar to ToT at a reduced effect. Reduce the amount of gear the game is shoveling out at you. Return to group loot for non-pug content, keep personal for anything you queue for and as an option for lax groups who just want the game to dole out loot. Change Azerite to be a sort of sub-talent tree, with a few class-specific effects like Legion weapons but mostly generic stuff to give new 120s a little boost like added bonuses to crit/haste/mastery/primary and whatever. Azerite armor is gone. PvP currency vendors are back.
Gear has set amount of sockets, like back in MoP. Will reinvigorate jewelcrafting as a profession to have each piece of gear have a set amount of gems.
Changes to WM in 8.1 are fine, keep them as is. I think the problem will correct itself in time.
But as far as the actual subjects of the topic, Warfronts are now a PvP/PvE hybrid against actual players, rewards now properly give PvP currency, and there are several relatively safe places you can go if you aren't interested in PvP like gathering lumber/metal being mainly PvE.
Island Expeditions no longer have a PvP element at all. You have to reach a set amount of resources, that's it. Designed fairly similar to mythic dungeons, but they're an open-world with minibosses that mainly focus around dodging and pseudo-enrages that discourage going in with the typical tank/dps/healer comp (but doesn't make it impossible).
Less procedural generation, give us maybe a pool of six bosses per island that don't spawn and despawn at random and have there be maybe three that will after conditions are met. Stuff like toys/mounts etc will be primarily from the special bosses and getting them to spawn will be kind of tricky for pugs unless you coordinate.
Basically what I'm saying is that Warfronts will properly be a PvE/PvP hybrid AV-like experience that naturally will take a little more time now that PvP is an element, and Island Expeditions are less like pseudo-PvP and more about the idea of a semi-random, "open world" dungeon that you can explore at your own pace, Timeless Isle-esque, complete with rare spawns and the like.