Yeah no, they don't want people to wait too long, but they're not gonna release the expansion 2weeks after adding content. Mid may is probably the earliest I'd see them releasing it. Most like early June instead(since technically spring goes until the 20something). That's still very rapidly after the last story bit, objectively. See wow expansions ^^.
And Tonic, not bullshit no, the ability is called Mortal Gaze, and it's a mechanic that have existed in the game since release(snakes in mor dhona and ahrimans in nthan have the same sort of abilities). It was used a lot in T7 too(medusa-like boss, look at her during petrification=stone, which prenerf was very likely death) so it's a fairly common mechanics for a lot of people by now. I almost never get doomed on the first boss, the pads are just there as a recourse if you fuck up rather than the intended mechanic.
I really liked WoD though, lots of cool mechanics overall, insanely good looking and sounding(music is fucking great, the light bridges are awesome, cerberus is probably one of the coolest model in the game, last boss is really cool) and the loot is pretty decent. The 3dungeons are kind of a mixed bag, nostalgia makes me like AK even though other than that and the non combat music it's terrible, WP is way too fucking long but the story and end cutscenes are nice, KotL is pretty nice but terrible players are a pain to carry on last boss. Odin was a massive disapointment, no new drops, no EX mode so we 2 shot it(and we only failed at 1% the first time due to DPS not noticing he had started casting since we got those "adds" stuff spawning right before). I haven't done the other 2 trials yet.
Overall, this part of the patch was kinda light on content, I assume most people will have done everything there is to do by next week's reset. But it's kinda ok, more is coming soonish, and with the weekly lockout on WoD anyway, need to farm that for a while to get full sets.