1. Visual look & feel
The trouble is, most people will feel Tyria > Cantha. This is because Tyria has classic (not to say cliche) fantasy settings: lush fields (presear), devastated landscape of Post Ascalon (a.k.a Blight), glorious mountain peaks (Shivs), desert and jungle, and even a bit of Morrowind-ish landscape of RoF. That's it - I wonder what would you come up with that's fresh and original for Factions...just look at Diablo 2 chapters: 1. Green fields, 2. Desert, 3. Jungle, 4. Hell (RoF??), 5. Mountains - so you tell me whats original and whats not.
Besides, GW had a unique feel because it's supportive of classical fantasy cliches that make us feel all fuzzy inside, everything was new, including game mechanics. People miss that feeling, and hope they will revive it when playing Factions. Guess what - ain't gonna happen - not ever - not with GW in any case. So stop delusioning yourself and blaming people who really dead a decent job.
Sure, they could listen to us more - but don't you think they are busy right now, 3-4 odd days after the realease, when all is still a-mess with bugs and feedback and whatnot??
2. Leveling up
Im GLAD for Lvl 20 just after nooby area, coz I found out I actively played (or farmed) less than half of Tyria because levels of monsters/people there were too low - no challenge, no nothing. Go, kill, slaughter, drink cofee in the process. Since it seems the game is designed to be run at 20Lvl by default, why the hell don't we start with lvl20? I was bored to tears thru Northern Shivs because of horrible skill selection - i practically run the same skillset up to Crystal desert - and THAT ruined my exploration. This game is not about leveling, remember! I don't ever remember when was the last time I visited Yak's or Ascalon...
Finally, I'm not blindly defending ANet, just shifting perspective a bit. There are a lot of things that they turned a deaf ear, but this amount of hate y'all showing just for the sake of wanting to feel "noob in love with GW" is really unfair towards the ANet in general.
And yeah - this is an expansion, not a brand new game, remmeber?
