Outland was still a place we had visisted before, where we encountered people we knew to be there, not to mention it was literally the first expansion.
And yes, I dislike Shadowlands for not keeping a firm enough grasp on my attention, and for having a plot that feels completely out of nowhere.
I like some of the collectibles, and I did enjoy myself playing Necrolord and seeing the story, but I don't feel that connection to the open world the way I did in BfA or Legion.
Some of this is almost definitely because of the severe content drought which happened through no fault of the developers, but even with that I was never convinced the Shadowlands would really work as a full expansion, and while the cosmetics are a nice distraction they cannot really hide how little I actually care, which was something BfA didnt manage until the final patch.