Probably. It is also consistent with the Barrens warfront (and possibly the Silvermoon one too) being cut off - at least, I remember seeing a lot of datamined stuff about it in Wowhead.
Still, I can't understand why could Devs possibly think that islands, Warfronts and Azerite were going to be well received, given the fact that they were pretty much unanimously roasted during beta. And not by random LFR dwellers, but by some of the best players in the world, from both PvP and PvE venues.