Part of me actually suspects that in both this Illidan example and forsaken leadership they're cheekily watching the community reaction to events to see how they want things to go. "Oh, the lightbound illidan arc isn't going over well? Hold on a patch, we'll make a new cutscene."
I definitely think they did that when writing the Mag'har scenario. It was almost point-for-point a response to people's criticisms of WOD. Remove time travel element? Check. Remove access to alternate reality from the picture? Check. Yrel should've been angry at the iron horde? Check. Punish Grommash for his actions? Check. Remove all other alt versions of existing characters? Check. Give brown orc customizations to playerbase? Checkarooni.