Yeah, that's just how MMOs work these days in the main, it's an inevitable side effect of new expansions. If you sold an expansion that did not introduce new endgame stuff you'd be burned at the stake, so there's got to be some way to get new players through things so they can catch up.

e; Plus, if you look at the experience with WoW, Blizzard found that a lot of content was simply not seen by the majority of their player base. Endgame raids couldn't even be entered until you did attunements and preparation and stuff, and the number of people who actually got to and ripped Kil'jaedan in Sunwell or The Lich King in Icecrown was miniscule, I believe most estimates place it at somewhere around 1% of the playerbase at best. In part this has led to a major streamlining of the game, of which the stuff you mention is just one element, but it does make sense to make sure people have a decent number of ways to get geared and suchlike, so more playstyles are catered to.