i read all the books and all the lore. and the wow universe (WotA, PrePortal stuff, orcs vs humans, Scourge and Lich King, dragon aspects, etc) and its characters (i.e. thrall, lothar, medivh, orgrim, rhonin, illidan, turalyon, uther, garona, etc) was really not bad at all. broad range of story and deep lore. the early (golden) days of wow was a written universe, that was not bad at all. wow do not have to hide behind shadowrun, star wars, star trek or warhammer. it was good stuff. so there WERE creative ppl and good writing at some point in the past.
that said, lets be real: nothing came after that. endless recycling of all that good, but old, stuff since ~2010. wether good new characters that were used long term and fitted well into the universe, nor good writing and enhancement of that universe. instead they produced half assed characters (that mostly killed a while later anyway), embedded in horrible shit stories. all of that was loose coupled together, presented with horrible bad writing. or in short: it was cheap shit.
so all in all the wow universe per se is great imo, but what they made out of it, is horrible flat and lame cheap shit. and the reason imo is: $$ milk it.