It's purely anecdotal, of course, but all the people I know who have quit WoW have done it in the midgame; generally the 30's. The ones that actually make it to 70 (well, 60 back in the day) are the ones who stuck around. This includes several people who only tried the game after TBC came out.

The midgame definitely needs a strong tuning up; everyone knows it, and it's one of the reasons the XP rate is being increased in 2.3. There's entire zones that were essentially incomplete at release (Blasted Lands, Dustwallow Marsh, Deadwind Pass) in the middle tier, and are only now starting to get poked at.

The problem, though, is that doing midgame content is difficult to justify on a balance sheet. The most-repeated content is the endgame material or the newbie material; this is shown perfectly clear by TBC covering 1-20 and 60-70, with nothing in between. The trouble, though, and the thing that Blizzard continues to forget, is that the midgame is "maintenance content"; it's used less often overall, but it's also the easiest place for super-casuals to get bored. And it's even more tedious to people who've reached the level cap more than once; STV, anyone?

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