Artificial,

No...what Rowan seems to be saying is that it doesn't neccesarily make sense to make an additional section of the starting zone for the first 5 levels of the game (which take, what...20 minutes to complete?) just to start gnomes and dwarves in different physical areas. How does that benefit new players anyway?

When you played WoW for the first time and found yourself in that little valley with your gnome, did you think to yourself, "Wow...this is obviously the same starting zone as dwarves and those are the only alliance characters that share a starting zone and for some reason I know that already and it makes me angry. I sure wish they would make a separate starting zone for gnomes. Maybe one that's just slightly north of here and would still send me out to the rest of Dun Morough to do the same quests as Dwarves 20 minutes from now."

Adjusting the fun factor and flow of the starting zones as a whole? Sure, that makes sense in terms of drawing players in. Giving gnomes their own little tiny section of that starter zone? Doesn't seem even slightly important from a new player marketing perspective.