Originally Posted by Selaya
That`s fair enough, however, for most people thats not something you`d repeat. To be honest, the first time I played this game, I found it quite appealing as well.
However, it offers little to no replayability value, not to me at the very least anyways.
The instanced content however does, as I`ve been playing this game for several years now and still am doing Dungeons, Raids, Arenas and Battlegrounds.
Just because it's something YOU wouldn't repeat that doesn't necessarily apply to every single player in World of Warcraft. If those areas exist it's because there's a lore behind it. Each individual area has sence behind it. Only the most blind will refuse to see why they exist. That's why you have specific quests for each and individual area.
Yes, they don't give you the end game gear. So what? That's why this game is a MMORPG. You do whatever you want to. No one forces you to raid. Following your logic, I wouldn't need to do BC Raids / WOTLK Raids either since I already knew the lore itself thanks to Warcraft III. The lore is there to be explored same goes for the continents themselves.

About the RDF's and BG's issue they give you two options;
1) You actually go and do it through questing and have lore discoveries while you do it. A much slower process.
2) You bombard RDF's and you gain, at least, one to two levels per RDF. Since I already know all the lore that I need to know, since I've already done all of those quests before why should I be forced to go through a long way leveling when I'm repeating every single step again?

Yes, most of the players ignore the lore. But it's their loss, not your loss. If you actually play a game to know the maximum about it you're going to try to clear it at 100%. In any kind of game, not just WoW. That reminds me when Destiny came out and I tried to explore every single corner possible before rushing into raids and gear farm. Most of the players did that - But you had those two options once again.

Originally Posted by Selaya
I`d also say that getting gear and better gear is one of the if not the most central aspect of this game.
Yes, the gear does actually have a certain ammount of relevance in this game. But the game doesn't just spin around the gear though. You don't necessarily need to be overgeared (Ok - Most of the people in Warmane don't know this. BREAKING NEWS!) to do content. Plus, you don't necessarily need to be BiS to farm achievements or just go through the lore exploration one more time.

Originally Posted by Selaya
I did say from the very beginning that 'almost all of the content that _matters_ is in some instanced area'
Yes and exactly as Lynea said you have a HUGE background from the several continents and each questline to backup those same instances. How many questlines do you actually know that introduce you to those same instances?
The whole game is built up in decent complex way. Just throwin' my two cents here.