"Flying should be removed/Travel should be more engaging"
No, I don't want to be engaged in micromanaging my bloody mount through tedious terrain. If I wanted travel to be engaging I'd play a racing game or a simulator game. In an expansive open-world, I want freedom of movement so I can take in the scenery from wherever I land. Travel in WoW was great from TBC->MoP, then WoD came along and fucked the whole thing for the sake of dragging out travel time for no apparent reason other than to increase how much time you have to spend traveling between content objectives.