I mean there is a reason back in Cataclysm Ghostcrawler and other Blizzard employees mentioned they were not a fan of flying. Mostly because players just skip content by go from A to B, and it make much harder to design the world. I'm a fan of the pathfinder myself, but also hope the new version become easier to obtain :P
I don't mind pathfinder being added in later as long as you get it from the get go. Kind of like how Legion did it where it was a natural progression where the reps and the like you would get as you played anyways. Beats splitting it into 2 parts only to feel kind of screwed over when the 2nd part of the achievement was locked behind new rep that's even more timegated then the first. (Looking at how stupid the timegating was when it came to mechagon and nazjatar rep.)
Pathfinder, no matter the form it takes (rep grinds, renown, whatever), is not the issue... it's the time gating... waiting one year from release to fly.Flying and mounts in general could use a revamp. There was a fan created mockup of what mount equipment could look like in an infograph posted about 6 years ago. The big take away was the ability to name each mount and equip each one differently since mounts are shared account-wide.https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1507012-Mount-2-0-%28Mount-Revamp-Fan-Made-Infographic-inside
Shadlwlands been out for a few weeks and not having difficulty in finding groups. 2-3 minute queues, not bad.