Thanks for the screenshots! I saw the two dwarves in Menethil Harbor today who also reference DF, and it made me smile. I've been praising DF to my WoW guildies but so far have not hooked anyone else, though some were curious. They generally don't have time for a new, complex game sadly.
The stat inflation is something that really bugs me. I can see why it's needed but yeah, I wish they did some kind of massive stat rescaling so that 1-85 is smooth progression all the way.
I hear you. Granted, I'm biased because I strongly dislike it (from an RP standpoint as well as a mechanical one) when a character's strength is tied 90% to their equipment instead of their own innate abilities. The stat mudflation is just crazy. It also means that lowbies don't stand a snowflake's chance in hell against a high-level griefer no matter how many of them there are to pile up on the asshat. I still remember how, in vanilla, I took out a level 60 griefer in Astranaar with a half-dozen or so other 20-30s. That felt awesome. Try that with a level 80 or soon 85 -- all it takes is one press of the AoE button and you're a smear on the ground.
Generally, though, and despite my strong misgivings about some design choices, I feel quite a bit more positive about Cataclysm now than about Wrath. The redesigned areas are fun. More challenging instances will be awesome for mainly casual players who got bored to tears by the brainless AoE-fests in Wrath. Deathwing & co are more interesting to me than Arthas this, Arthas that, Scourge, Scourge and more Scourge. And I am certainly not shedding a tear for the removed stats. I play WoW to play WoW. It's inane that you "need" a degree in mathematics or hump a damn spreadsheet to make the most out of your character. The challenge should be in the encounters themselves, not in agonizing over gems and enchants.
Luckily, being casual means I never have to bother with the spreadsheet-humping.
I play the best I can, read up on some guides, and give the middle finger to "GS" and min-maxing.