WoW follows a very formulaic pattern, and has since BC. BC, wrath and cata were exactly the same, with varying degrees of difficulty (with early cata being the hardest period, and most of wrath being a total joke). Level up, hit a few dungeons along the way, hit them 50 more times as heroics at max level, do first raid tier. Do other raid tiers. Wait until next expac, level up, etc.
It's definitely well done, or else the raiding scene would have died like every other MMO's does - I honestly say this is the biggest difference between WoW and most other MMOs. Rift had a leveling experience on par with WoW's, and TOR wasn't that awful either, but their endgames being massive jokes was the deathblow. Their devs look at wow circa 2005 and say "damn, I guess players really love grind" and try to make their game as grindy as possible, while failing to see all the ways blizzard has been reducing that grind (or at least masking it cleverly) over the years.
Back in BC, you basically had to do each tier of content before the next one, or your gear would hold you back too much to progress. That was a complete nonissue in Wrath and Cata, and you could pretty much jump right into current content after minimal gearing up (wrath introduced ToC before gear scaled too high, and cata's JP/VP vendor system lets you buy last tier's raid gear with dungeon points).
It's not that TOR is great or pandas are silly, it's just WoW is an old game, and most of the people with interest in it are already playing. Once their interest wanes and they quit, there's not really anyone to take their place. Blizzard has been trying to address this by beefing up rewards for new players/returning players (RAF triple exp lasting until 80, scroll of resurrection giving instant 80/free server transfer), but unless they change the formulaic pattern they've been following, there's not much they can do to slow the people walking out the door.
Trying new things like pokemon battles and farmville are just attempts at introducing gameplay mechanics/sidequests/timewasters that might entice more people to play, or keep current players entertained for long enough to pay that next monthly fee. I'm sure the raids will be as good as they've always been (hopefully more along the lines of Ulduar, and less like Dragon Soul), but Blizzard isn't stupid - they're going to try new things and see if they work. They didn't get the shiny 1st place MMO ribbon for sitting on their asses and praying, they got it for trying new shit and revamping what needed revamping. As long as they don't destroy the raiding scene in the process, I say let them add all the pokemon they want.
