Oh no I definitely agree. I just have a slight different take on it. The only instances I consider sad at the lower end if you don"t do them are deadmines and wailing caverns. Stockades can rot in hell; I hate that zone to all hell and back.
Since I"ve been leveling my draenei in my off time, I"ve found a decent amount of people to group with, but I"ve not been gung-ho on instances, they just kinda fall into my lap.
My draenei is on a pve server, so I"m not sure if that changes anything.
What makes instances so challenging to get groups for is that they are real actual chances to die a billion times if you go with idiots, for maybe 2-3 quests to do, and no real loot, so most people when leveling an alt skip it.
I think I would hate them if they make stockades mandatory but maybe thats what they should do, or at least make it a chain progression through the lower instances so people aren"t stuck. Re-itemization might also work, or an abundance of new quests for rep rewards at the low end for various cities. (For example, no way in f**k am I getting a stupid elekk, I have been farming Darn rep since level 15.)
For me though, the way things work are a blessing. Being a healing class and not getting 349237 tells for a stupid instance is really nice, and when I do get a tell it"s really even money whether they know what they are doing or not.
Anyways to more formally address your question, I actually didn"t see a big giant leap progression wise on my server; except for the one at the high end. (For Outlands, and its pretty easy to find a group for virtually any instance there whenever.) Those that did start draenei immediately did so with the intent to level them to 70 as fast as possible, so they either skipped instances or had a high level buddy run them through.
The only real rush to progression I saw was when I made my first character and started playing the game. Everyone else being at most 20 levels above me (If they were hardcore, woo) made it pretty easy to find someone who would go to an instance.
TBH, what I would love to see happen is an EQ-style new area designed so you can go from 1-60 without doing any of the old content. EQ did that with The Serpent"s Spine? I think, where if you started a dragon char, or any char for that matter you could level 1 to whatever the max was without leaving the new area. Something like that would go a long way to revitalizing the lower end content and giving people who want to experience the wonder of the old instances a chance to do so.
Also if I never have to do ashenvale quests again that would be pretty super.
