RAF is not going away. Blizzard wants new people who buy WoTLK to not have to avoid the game because of the grind from 1 - 60 or 1 - 70 just to play the expansion. This is actually very smart. I have avoided EvE and several other games because I would be so far behind the power curve just because I wasn't there day 1 and people were so far in the lead (1000+ AA points, etc).