I have tried that. Honestly toward the end of BfA I was spending most of my playtime on the mount/pet/toy hunt. Every day was a routine of hitting Rustfeather, then Soundless, then certain rares in Uldum/Vale. After that I'd go run some old dungeons, do some old world quests or queue for some random battlegrounds. For the most part I just did my best to try to enjoy myself in the world of Azeroth that I genuinely loved.
Before I ended up having to unsub this was the last screenshot I took.
(Before anyone brings it up, I confess that I bought all that. I'm not good enough or connected enough to earn it on my own.)
It just feels like, only the competition, only the rated organized stuff matters more and more nowadays. Even the devs seem more worried about building e-sports than they do about worldbuilding. I don't feel like I can do random battlegrounds if I came back until I thrust myself into that world. The world of metas, scores, logs, and toxic elitism. Even just killing Sire Denathrius wouldn't matter; you have to kill him with a perfect percentile, perfect footwork, or you are just considered a carry that doesn't deserve it, as every single step you make and every single action is recorded, logged and judged. It's just a depression and anxiety inducing world out there nowadays for that reason.