To be honest, yes I initially also had Tolkien's Elves in the back of my head. Tolkien simply set the bar for these races. No one ever before built them out so detailed and thorough. Now unlike the OP, I did not expect for WoW's Nelfs to be like Rivendell's Elves. I associated them more towards Legolas' Wood Elves.
Now, to make one thing perfectly clear..
My comparisons and parallels have zero to do with the movies and the stereotypes produced through them. Orlando Bloom's Legolas is not what's in the back of my head, nor is Hugo Weaving's Elrond. The closest Elf as portrait by Tolkien, to me would be Craig Parker's Haldir.
Anyhow, WoW's Nelfs are just not even close. And I was actually a bit disappointed about that. WoW Nelf's are heavily Goth influenced. And my very first reaction was rather WTF.... Robert Smith meets Galadriel.. The offspring = WoW Nelfs. Yet, I still chose Nelf for my first 2 toons ever rolled. I also realize that I cannot put myself into a mainstream example. I started playing in Vanilla, and I was already there rather disturbed by the use of tech based items. While I was able to put up with many of the engineer items in the game back then, I was completely annoyed when they put the helicopters into the game with TBC. At least to me, WoW lost a lot of it's feel with the integration of technology. It countered too much of it's fantasy dark ages charisma.
Now, as a veteran of the game, I've long learned that there's nothing in the game that was entirely created by Blizzard. WoW as a whole is the biggest spin-off product on the planet. Is that morally a good thing? I don't know. Blizzard claims (at least they act like it) that their cross references are a homage. That they basically honor the originals with it. Everything in the game already exists in one form or another, either in literature or irl. Sometimes those references are fun (one of my favorites is the Klaxxi Meta Achievement which consists entirely out of Sub achievements made up by ass kicking classic hard rock bands/songs)
Sometimes they make no sense though, and take away from the game's feel.