Flight paths also offered some nice foreshadowing. When flying from Ironforge to Stormwind, which many alliance players would often do, you fly over Burning Steppes, a very high level zone. A menacing music starts to play, a brown fog covers everything around you, there's lava, dragons, the zone looks "scary" but also exciting. Makes you want to play so that you can go there and explore it for yourself.
They were also chock full of things to see. Flying over Ironforge there was that dwarf/trog fight that you could never get to, but always wanted to. The world felt huge and full. You knew that if you just got over the next hill there'd probably be something interesting to look at or make you go wow. EQ didn't have those same set pieces.
