Eh? The big battle back when the Well of Eternity was destroyed, when Illidan got his burning eyes, when Nordrasil was planted, et cetera, there was a war and Tauren were in the army. Dwarves weren't yet, because they were still Earthen back then, but Tauren were. Rhonin was the only human around, and was considered a freak. Broxigar was the only orc around, and was considered a freak.

Exactly so; the next expansion might not be a continent in itself, but there's lots of stuff in the existing continents to keep them going for a lot more expansions. Say the undisclosed instance in patch 3.2 is not AN (or even if it is for that matter), just tying up the loose ends of Gilneas and Kul'Tiras on one side, Grim Batol and the red dragonflight, Uludar and the titans, Hyjal, Deathwing and the Black Dragonflight (possibly in Outland, too) would give them enough material for an expansion, and provided they could pack the whole bunch of different stories and conflicting schemes in an expansion, it wouldn't add any new continents, while still providing several zones for people to level in.

You are forgetting about the marketing of such an expansion.

What you describe might "feel" good when played, but it will not "sell" good to 10-12 million subscribers.

"Visit the new ...", "Experience the new ..."

that's what sells the boxes. New lands to explore, new race or class to play, not experiencing old areas in a new way.
Details like that are largely expected to happen in content patches, not the large scale expansion add-ons.

Lets face it, there WILL be a completely new area to explore. The next expansion will with 100% certainity not play in Northrend or in well known Azerothian areas again and everything that might be added to Azeroth itself will be sidework to the main context.

This opinion is not based on any secret insider information, just on plain and simple economical considerations.

From a marketing standpoint, you can sell anything as new. In fact, it can actually be easier to sell change as new than just new as new. I think Blizzard understands that the third expansion is going to be where the "formula" starts feeling a bit overdone. A new continent, maybe a new class, a new grind from 80 to 90, new factions, there's very little that sets that apart from BC or LK. It may be new, but it's new in the same old way. BC introduced many things during its content cycle that having them at the beginning of LK is "new" in a way (stuff like dailies). We're also seeing a new class for the first time. That won't be the case for expansion number three. Selling something as seeing "not the same old Azeroth any more" and playing up massive changes in many ways would seem more new than just visiting the south seas.

A parallel universe of sorts, a true updating of the old worlds, things like that would definitely break away from the paradigm. Increasingly I think we're much more likely to see Emerald Dream next than Maelstrom because Maelstrom would just be a new area, sure it might be islands instead of a continent, but it's still much the same. Emerald Dream has the potential to be something truly otherworldly, possibly much more disjointed and less structured. I don't know much of the lore beyond what is ingame, but I've always had the impression of it as being very surreal and tend to think of places like Planescape when it is referred to.

CoT as an expansion itself isn't necessary because they can keep adding CoT instances with every single expansion pack, as they've done so far.

I recently re-did these two quests on beta:

The Shining Light - Quest - World of Warcraft
Guided by Honor - Quest - World of Warcraft

The player is tasked with retrieving a "sacred artifact" from the Utgarde Catacombs. Unless I'm mistaken, in the latter quest, this item is revealed to be none other than the Ashbringer, and players are retrieving it for Tirion Fordring to wield.

However, in the the Death Knight questline, it's established that Darion Mograine was the wielder of this weapon. The way he got it from his father is rather unclear, it's what the Ashbringer comics are dealing with. However, from the DK questline, it's clearly established that he got the weapon from his father in Naxxramas, plunged it through his heart in order to save his father, died and became a death knight, got betrayed by Arthas in the light of dawn, and finally gave it to Tirion, whose grip cleansed it.

So a few questions came to mind:

1. How did the blade end up in the Utgarde Catacombs?
2. Is the quest just another way for non-dk's to participate in getting the Ashbringer to the hands of Fordring?
3. Or was the quest introduced in early WoTLK development when the Death Knight questline wasn't completely outlined? (Highly unlikely.)

As to #3, the quest giver could have passed the blade to Darion Mograine. But it doesn't explain how the blade ended up there.

I think the general idea about this sofar has been that Tirion received the weapon from Darion mograin.
It was then lost on its journey to Northrend by whoever Tirion assigned to carry it (how you lose on the of the greatest relics of modern time is something else)
And you then have to retrieve it from the catacombs to once again return it to Tirion.

Uh, Randyll, it's really easy.

1) Darion gets the Ashbringer from Daddy. This will happen in Ashbringer Comic #2 or #3, probably #3.

2) Darion plunges the Ashbringer through his chest in a final, desperate attempt to cleanse it. This will almost certainly be the climax of the Ashbringer Comic. The attempt backfires and while it frees Alexandros' soul, it damns Darion instead.

3) Darion becomes the new leader of the DKs. See the DK starter line.

4) Darion throws the Ashbringer to Tirion in an act of desperation. Tirion's raw awesomeness cleanses the thing.

5) To ensure that Tirion and his ship are not buried under angry undead, Tirion travels to Northrend disguised, and the Ashbringer is taken seperately. Irulon explains as much when you turn in the last quest. Somehow, the bearer of Ashbringer gets waylaid on reaching Northrend and is taken into Utgarde.

6) The player quests in Catacombs happen. The Ashbringer is recovered and brought back to Tirion who can now reveal himself openly and start kicking ass.

It really isn't that hard to track the events.

The parts leading up to 5 were clear enough, in fact, they've been all over this thread for a multitude of pages. I think my wording of the first post was a bit bad, my mistake. I didn't mean to wonder how the Ashbringer came into existence (it's already at page one), so if you thought I was trying to iterate what's already been said a hundred times, I apologize.

What I meant was from an analytic perspective, with the whole thing was that how exactly is it possible for someone to lose something like this, with all of it going unnoticed? Surely being one of the most important artifacts and one of the rare weapons that can (supposedly) put a dent in the Lich King's armor. With him being so powerful he is, he'd surely notice its presence in his own backyard. Why is the place surrounding it crawling with undead, when it's presence make them run away from it if anything?

I was wondering why such quests are in place, as to discuss the actual point for their existence. The whole thing seems absurd, only to serve as having every player interact with the artifact - does that justify it?

Also I recall reading Ashbringer #4 (the climax you're referring to) deals with the LHC battle, according to the synopsis on blizzplanet.

<edited out>

Also worth noticing are that Ashbringer doesn't destroy all undead - Forsaken and Death Knights both do just fine around Tirion. It also doesn't seem to be a passive effect, it's something that actually happens during combat - in one of the questlines in Icecrown, you get to see the sword in action.