If there is a strong connection, they probably aren't being explicit about it because it's material for future content.
I mean do we really expect them to say "Yeah YS was manipulating the Lich King the entire time, and now the Saronite constructed ICC is tightening his grip on Bolvar ready for November 2014!"

Something I haven't heard mentioned is that the last few lines Bolvar says in the cinematic are clearly in Ner'zhuls voice.

I don't think he was implying they wouldn't know what the changes were, but more that they might only have the gist or general idea of the subtext of the lore behind the changes. Whether WPL is cleansed due to the Argent Dawn's efforts, Classic player's efforts, the Lich King being defeated, Naxxramas being driven back to Icecrown, or whatever isn't necessarily as important from a gameplay perspective.

Oh I fear the QQ about such tech in "a fantasy game"...

Oh come on. Warcraft is not a fantasy game. Even if you exclude space paladins, it's basically steam-punk universe.

The average forum poster believes Gnomes were invented specifically for WoW because they weren't in WarCraft III.

I guess WarCraft II probably stopped being popular before the average forum poster was born, or something.

I'm sorry if the quotes weren't enough to mark the irony, but that's what I was saying.

Plus, you know, he's a hunter:
"Nathanos, I thought that the Alliance killed you!"
"So did they, dimwit. The thought that a ranger-general would be able to take on the aspect of a possum did not seem to cross their feeble little minds"

Reading over the Blizzcast transcript, it's pretty interesting that a new CoT instance will be included... either it's going to be some completely random event that Blizzard thinks would be cool to have in the game, or I can only imagine that it'll be related to the War of the Ancients, since that's the past event most relevant to Cataclysm, probably. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with..

I can't think of any event in the War of the Ancients that could fit a dungeon, although maybe devs will add raid too? I think that destruction of Demon Soul is much more likely: they will make Grim Batol anyway, and players will see familiar faces of Rhonin, Korialstrasz, and Alexstrasza

Though they've not done this yet, Caverns of Time would be a fantastic way to retcon anything they like.

Need to bring a character back to life? Have a team come in to sneak him away at the last minute. Need to portray somebody's actions as good instead of bad? Have us aid them and learn their new motivations. CoT can re-write anything at this point. The Infinite flight is a ready-made antagonist in our efforts as they show up almost in every one and their motivations, while unknown, are largely unimportant. (If they are in fact led by Nozzy, then he knows the outcome already and are simply a tool to make things happen and their success or failure are unimportant. It's only important that they are there.)

Except we've already changed the timeline with the blessing of at least one of the Bronzes before, with the Battle of Darrowshire -- yet their mandate is to keep time progressing as it should, not to break or bend the rules when it suits them.

Of all the Bronzes we've seen so far, Chromie has had us alter history, Nozdormu is suspected of attempting to avert his death, and at least one other member of the Flight deemed the future actions of both Dornaa and Salandria worth altering the timeline to avoid -- so at least some of the Bronzes have made decisions that betray their designated mandate.