Why would they be afraid of Classic being successful? Not sure if you're implying they'd change retail to be like Classic?
I'm actually curious to see how Classic will do. I'm not interested in it, because it's still an old game and old concept, but I'm very much interested in seeing it as an experiment.
If asked, I'd guess there will be some sort of playerbase but it'll be pretty small - mostly because, generally speaking, old things don't attract new people and old people don't have spare time for old things. But would this be called "hate"? I'd actually want to see Classic prosper, it could only mean good things for WoW franchise.