Personally, I consider adding a new class to be a less significant addition than adding two new races. Even though the two new races only have a few small changes compared to existing races, and their starting zones can be written off as new questing zones that you can routinely expect with any very large patch, every blood elf or draenei I play gives me seventy levels of play experience.

Comparably, adding in a whole new class would require a vast amount of work just to balance with existing classes. For all that people like to complain how much a warlock is better than a mage, that the DPS of every DPS class is even within 50% of every other DPS class given their wildly differening playstyles and abilities is a testament to Blizzard's skill.

However, for all that work on their part, when I create a new death knight, I'll only get to play him through 25 levels of content; in terms of how much I'll have invested into that character, he's barely half as significant as my draenei shaman or blood elf paladin.

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