Mounts are useless? How? Sure you won't be using them to spend hours getting from one map to another but they are still very useful when traveling across a map. God knows I don't want to lose them and I don't give a damn about "cosmetics." I do see how flying mounts would only be marginally more useful though. I also agree that these teleports really dumb down on the "world experience," you can blame casuals for that.

Another thing that really dumbs it down is the fact that you can't travel to instances and enter it yourself, everything is via the Duty Finder. A few months back, I was wondering around South Shroud and stumble upon the entrance to Amdapor Keep and I went, "So this is where Amdapor Keep is." These dungeons are so disconnected from the world, I don't even feel like they're a part of it, its almost pointless to even have them on the map.