So it hurts your immersion because the lore doesn't fit? Ok, if you feel that way who am I to say it's wrong. It is kind of ridiculous but ok
The point is, the developers think flying in general hurts immersion in the leveling/questing process in addition to PVP.
I would be hesitant to say an expansion is feature poor before having access to the beta. You don't know how big a feature those living events out in the world is gonna be. You also don't know what the endgame content beyond raids/dungeons is gonna be (I totally agree about the lack of dungeons btw).
Saying they had no more ideas so they went for player housing is just a moronic statement. The same could be said if they were to go back to trying aerial combat. A similar argument would then be "they have so few ideas they are starting to grasp for straws of the past".