You have to keep repeating yourself because you are wrong. I played Vanilla in 2006 (about a year after it came out) and also played Classic when it came out. Vanilla might have taken me a week to get to 12, I can’t remember anymore; but it was my first MMO and first RPG, my first time playing a social game and didn’t know how to group to quest or even respond to people whispering me, and didn’t have any friends giving me advice on how to play or know what internet resources to use to speed things up. I didn’t even know I could speed things up.

With Classic I was probably to level 10 in a night after work. I haven’t leveled a fresh character in Retail since Cataclysm, so I have no idea how fast it is these days.