Sw:d and sw:p would disagree with your statement there. Also, disease and death magic in wow is classified as "shadow" along with psychic magic. Warlocks also have disease type sounding spells, not just dks

Nope from what I can guage on the lore of Shadow Word: Pain at least it deals its damage psychosomatically, it essentially inflicts pain in the literal sense of causing neurons and c-fibres to fire without dealing any actual direct physical trauma.

vampiric touch, vampiric embrace, harnessed shadows, darkness, dispersion, shadowy apparition, shadow orbs...

yes, there is a lot of psychic/mind type spells and talents in the shadow priest's arsenal, but you aren't just a cooler looking version of Psyduck.

http://www.wowpedia.org/Shadow_(magic_school)

'Shadow appears to be split into subcategories or is synonymous with "Darkness", "Negative", "Death", "Destruction", "Chaotic", "Evil", and "Fel." Spells of shadow may derive their power from actual shadows & darkness.'

So no, shadow priests aren't using necromancer type magic, but they are using shadowy/dark/dark arcane/death/vampiric/blood magic.

Maybe Tyler would play a shadow priest if he could look like this:

http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/thumb/5/53/054Psyduck.png/200px-054Psyduck.png

But I'm guessing Fox and the rest of you wouldn't be too happy about that.

I agree with Ilmyrn. When all priests got Dev Plague, I felt weird about casting something that seemed so death knight-y. It was only exacerbated by the fact that DKs could spread Dev Plague around back then (that was aweeesoooooommmee). But it's just a copied and then enhanced spell that used to be the Forsaken priest perk, so that's why of course. It makes perfect sense for a Forsaken spriest to cast it (to me). Even though those racials were useless at worst and imbalanced at best, I still miss them just for the flavor.

Also, concerning the OP, I will be ok if they redesign or get rid of Plague only if they continue to let us have an interesting rotation. As I've said before, I worry that without refreshing SWP or having SWD in our full rotation, it's just not going to be that interesting. I wonder, though, if they might buff up our direct damage so that we rotate more like we do now with our four set.. sometimes spiking and mindblasting and then switching to dotting. While I'm not crazy about it yet (because I'm used to my dots!), I could grow into it. I certainly have in this patch. Although, half the fun is moving while casting Plague so.. hmm...