So as I'm going over the various changes to the tank role it's starting to feel like there's really no point in enmity even existing any more. If a tank can just sit there in the tanking stance with no penalty and there's no longer enmity-building combos or enmity-mitigation abilities-- Diversion, Smoke Screen, and so on-- why even have the mechanic at all?

Whether or not it was intentional, it seems like enmity has been set up to more or less handle itself in this expansion. If, hypothetically, Paladins had a trait that caused Shield Lob or Total Eclipse to make their current target automatically attack them, or Provoke was changed to something like, "Forces the target to attack you", would that be functionally any different than how things are shaping up to be at current?

I've always been of the opinion that threat management was a key component of the tanking experience and these changes essentially remove that by automating the process and making it effortless.

I'm concerned that it's not only will this not feel like tanking any more and be like playing another DPS class except you have to use damage mitigation cooldowns sometimes, but also that this will have the added effect of homogenizing the tank jobs to the point where the things that made those classes unique and valuable in different circumstances will be gone.

Paladin used to have the edge in off-tanking because of Divine Veil, Cover, Passage of Arms and Intervention. Now every tank will have a single-target and AoE mitigation ability and Cover has been nerfed back to it's pre-20% days. Warrior used to have the early-fight enmity gain potential, the best HP, and the top damage. Now there's no damage penalty on tank stances, Defiance is gone and all tanks have, allegedly, been tuned to the same damage potential.

If you are going to streamline a mechanic to the point of automation what's the point in that mechanic still existing?