I agree on the gearing part but 19 in shadowlands will be the equivalent of 38. We will never experience the "real" 19 bracket again that we can do currently. That's why I think we should use the time that we have left and play it out.
That was the idea, but the interest simply dwindled down over time. If people had the interest in keeping things going, they would have. It's just reality at this point. The only way I ever see a long-lived 19 bracket at this point, or any time in the future, is with a merge of XPON and XPOFF again. It'll be the better middleground for casual and competitive twinks right now, seeing as the number of competitive twinks are not high enough to sustain the bracket.
Classic has a lot more traction on the 19's scene, simply because of the sheer amount of quantity, and they still have competitive games on the side. You need an active bracket to attract people and then the competitive games will follow by default as more and more people gain an interest. Classic simply has a better growth model for twinking. I honestly believe at this state you NEED a mix of twinks and levellers. You'll get the casuals who can eventually evolve into competitive twinks. You'll have the levellers who get influenced and wants to give twinking a try etc. You have all that, while retail is stuck, completely.
The problem with retail is that, right now, the competitive twinks are not looking for an actual PuG environment. They want the quality, not the quantity. However, neglecting a PuG environment is hurtful for the bracket in the long run imo. You won't have that super easy "plug and play" feature for people to simply play casually or try things out and then as they gain an interest, let the competitive aspect evolve naturally.
We have ZERO ways of creating a natural pull towards the bracket. There is no "playing field" for people to learn even the most basic things, try things out, grow passionate etc. Even if it means going whac-a-mole on levellers. It's still a stepping stone.
The veterans of today's scene on retail (old / experienced 19's - not to be confused with the 20's term) has absolutely ZERO patience. This has been proven countless of times now, which means that even if wargames were to happen any time soon, there would be a minimal amount of new / more inexperienced players (if any at all) in order to even get remotely close to the need for quality that the playerbase desires. The barrier of entry is simply too high and filters away a lot of people by default. Not exactly a good thing when the bracket isn't even remotely healthy right now.
This and all the aforementioned factors means that retail 19's is dead until a pull effect comes into place (new expansion for instance), and even then, the issues of sustainability and how to achieve that (I simply believe there is no other way than merging XPON and XPOFF again), still remains.
The reason why the 20's bracket is so popular is not because the bracket is "free to play". A lot of the players have multiple accounts (at least 1 extra) with a paid subscription. It's popular because it has so many ways of creating traction.
-The appeal of limitation of pure free to play accounts (adds a certain dynamic and sense of achievement).
-The quantity of queues, simply because it basically mimics an XPOFF (vet accounts) and XPON (levellers) environment.
-Casual gameplay (PuGs)
-Competitive gameplay options (Wargames).
The 20 bracket will continuously have an influx of new players due to the main fact of satisfying / supporting casual and competitive gameplay. The interaction of vets and levellers also means that new players (the levellers) can easily gain an interest with unintended first hand experiences (holy shit, I got pwnd so hard, how? I wanna do that too!).
The fact that the bracket is "free" still helps of course, but it's probably not the most marginal factor.
