The reasons:
1. Dallies and rep - added because of people complaining in Cata there was nothing to do but sit in Org/SW and queue for stuff or spam trade. Rep was done in a few days with a tabard, and the daily quest hubs became obselete very quickly, even further making it pointless to ever leave town.
2. HGWT removed so that people actually have to travel and not teleport everywhere for free, again an attempt to make people get out of cities. Double run speed as dead so there is actually Some penalty of dying and having to corpse run, and so that battles could finish properly rather than someone ice skating back to their corpse in 2 seconds and rezzing.
3. PVP gear vendor in the middle of nowhere for two reason - so you'd have to leave town (a recurring theme here, eh?) and the possibility of PVP... you couldn't really gank in the middle of Old Town or in Valley of Strength. You can at the new locations.
4. Only one portal is stupid but... there are both personal and guild banks in Pandaria faction cities. There is no AH but they put one right next to the portal in Org.
When you look at the changes from a different perspective, they make sense. I single-boxed in Cata and never left orgrimmar. The entire "world" of warcraft was dead and there was no reason to go anywhere. You found groups, queued, teleported wherever you were, and if for some crazy reason you had to go somewhere, the entire raid would just get summoned there for free.
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