I'm not suggesting you like furries, I simply was pointing out that it's a matter of design, not culture. Secondly, there is a connection—for one, the artist who designed the Dracthyr's model was actually a furry artist (and admittedly a fairly good one—I actually think the 2d art looks really good. Their 3d art seems to be of a different style and vastly lower character design quality than their 2d art). This, of course, does not strictly suggest the Gnoll model was designed by furries, but the neotenous character design is very in-line with furry art. Finally, I'm not saying it's inherently bad that there may have been furries involved, simply that there is a furry-esque character design trend that I think just doesn't fit World of Warcraft's preexisting design tendencies at all and which I think constitutes bad character design for some creatures (such as Gnolls).
Please do not assume I have a political motive—I really don't. My political opinions are hugely out of the standard for the western world and the whole culture war can be very silly. I don't particularly like the furry culture (nothing against the people in themselves, I just find it creepy), but I'm not assuming some kind of insidious conspiracy is going on in Blizzard—I'm simply saying that the new art direction isn't particularly good, clashes with the preexisting style, and that I find it awkward and it also doesn't appeal to me as a matter of opinion.