The claustrophobic and artificial new zones compared to the "naturality" of the Old World.

Hey everyone!A quick disclosure: I haven't played all of Legion's Zones yet, and this is not about the art quality. I think Legion zones look absolutely stunning and the artists at Blizzard just seem to get better and better at making these environments beautiful with each expansion.As someone who loves leveling in WoW, the atmosphere, art, and most importantly the feeling of each zone is super important to me. What I wanted to talk about is the feeling I'm getting while leveling in Legion - that everything feels very claustrophobic. This started in the new zones in Cataclysm and has been getting "worse" with each expansion.Let me try to explain - There doesn't seem to be any empty space - no room to just travel and breathe - and the new environments don't feel natural as a whole. The only zone I remember having a bit more breathing room was Valley of the Four Winds. But even still, something feels a bit off and I can't put my finger on it. It's probably the "gamey" element that I will mention briefly. I'm currently question in Highmountain, which should be a very "expansive" zone but however, for some reason, it seems small, like everything is super close to each other. It seems like every little corner needs to have something and that there needs to be a lot of variety on the same environment. Not only do these new zones in the expansion have many "sub-zones" with different moods and such, but it feels like every little corner must be intended for something gameplay-wise. These sub-zones also contribute to this feeling of smallness I think – while they add some variety, it also makes you feel like you are traveling to another zone, even though you are still in Highmountain. They just don't feel like part of it.Again, everything is stunningly beautiful with terrific art. But it just doesn't feel natural. It feels "gamey". Seems like it was designed to be comfortable gameplay-wise and not to feel like an actual place.I was trying to pin down what was happening as I don't remember having this feeling from vanilla to WoTLK, so I traveled to some old world zones namely Ashenvale and Feralas. Both zones just look much more natural and much more expansive than anything in the newest expansions. It's like the forest was made first, and then populated with the quest hubs afterwards so that they fit into the environment. They don't feel crammed either, there is quite some space between each questing hub. In the new expansions it seems like it's the other way around. All the gameplay features were put into the map (and a lot of them) and then the natural environment was added all around. (not saying that this was the actual process – probably not – just that if feels this way) Some of the Old World zones are also much more consistent throughout as there is almost never a big change in the colors and atmosphere, so you never feel like you have a "zone within a zone. You feel like you are traveling through an actual place and not just going from "gameplay-hub to gameplay-hub".Does anyone else agree with this or have a similar feeling? Am I going mad and it's not like this at all?Please let me know your thoughts on this!Cheers!