So, I loved World of Warcraft back then. In fact, I played it in a raiding guild up until just a few years ago. However, I don't like it as a model for a TTRPG.
For me, this just comes down to the age-old game versus story debate. I found that 4e came down much heavier on the game side in ways that were obviously trying to be a TTRPG interpretation of WoW, with combat mechanics being the centre of the game (which is why classes were re-imagined in terms of MMORPG roles, like tank, striker, and so on). Not that you can't still RP in 4e, but the rules of that edition lead the games towards longer combats that put mechanics at the forefront, story optional. This is much like WoW, but WoW is a video game where you don't worry (or have time to worry) about the narrative of why your taunt works even on an opponent who can't understand you, you just worry about using it at the appropriate moment to maintain aggro.
Going back to what 2024 is trying to do with backgrounds, I like that it is leaning towards backgrounds being more logically tied to character abilities, displacing species to a certain extent. That makes narrative sense to me, because I think being good with, say, blacksmithing should have more to do with having a background as a blacksmith than with being a dwarf.