If you haven’t seen the information about the Mount changes in 3.2 go look.. I’ll wait.. Go. 
Ok.. Now that we are all on the same page. I’ll tell you why I like this. I’m sure that I will go over this again in Episode 48 of TNB, so if that is out already, go listen to it (and you can skip the rest of this I guess). If not, then, as Arnold used to say, “Read me now and listen to me later!”..
Moving regular land mounts to level 20 ( and associated cheapness ).
I like this for a few reasons, none of while have anything to do with my alliance toons (since all of the ones I am going to be leveling are >= 58).. Ok.. This is about new players, specifically my son. My son plays WoW and has for a while. He doesn’t have as much time to play as I do, so his time is split between leveling and battlegrounds (which he loves with a passion). He is not yet level 30 on his “main” (although he will be, hopefully when 3.2 hits) and so can’t ride yet. It does slow down the leveling process quite a bit because running from place to place is much slower than riding, even on a slow mount. Secondly… HORDE.. Yeah, at some point I might want to level my horde characters. In that case, I’ll be in the same position as my son and stuck starting from low level to do it (unless I break open the piggy bank for a 3rd account just to get them through..). It would be nice to be able to get a mount early on in that and I have at least 1 if not 2 or more Horde toons ready to get their regular mounts when this comes out.
Epic land mounts at 40.
I like this for the same reasons as above. The whole point, in my opinion, of why they are doing this is so that we can level up to 80 faster overall. Nice, fast epic land mounts at 40.. Of course, because they used to be 60, they had to do this since you head into outland at 58 or so and the next change is…
Regular flying mounts at 60!
Wow.. this one will be awesome for leveling through outlands. Plenty of quests and such are much much much easier if you can fly. So, they had to change the epic land mounts lower or you would never use it! (since you would be in outland at 58+ and be flying at 60 anyway)… Why did they move this one? Well.. lets think about this.. If they left the flying mounts at 70 minimum.. How many people actually would be flying at 70 (other than farming around Outland)? NONE! You move on to Northrend at around 68 (if not 70) and just as you would be getting flying (if you wait until 70) you are moving to a place that you can’t fly until 77.. So.. why get flying? why use flying until 77 at that point.. I did this for my mage. I didn’t even buy non-epic flying until 77..
In addition to all of this, they have increased the speed of regular flying mounts to 150% (from 60%).. Believe me .. the 60%.. OMG .. WAY TOO SLOW! I had the normal flying mount on my mage for about 1/2 of Grizzly Hills and just couldn’t take it anymore. So, I got back on my 80s and quested and quested until I had enough to pay for the faster mount.. (BIG SIGH OF RELIEF).. Now, it’s not as fast as the epic flying, but double what the regular flying was before.. I’ll take it!
When this comes out, all of my “main” toons will be getting some form of flying (if I have the moola) except my DK, whom I guess I should get up to 60 before it hits, eh? 
I don’t think this will take much of anything from the game and will serve to increase the speed of leveling (which Blizzard has been working a long time to do) without increasing the amount of XP you get from quests or mob kills, etc..
So… go forth and mountify! Oh.. Have to wait for 3.2..
P.S. I hear from my “sources” that, as she put it, this is just the “carrot” for 3.2.. The stick is coming soon.. And there will be much QQ..
I’m fine with all these changes… but flying at 60? That just seems odd to me. I thought the whole point was not to let players “skip over content,” which is why we can’t fly in Northrend at levels 68-76.
With flying, you’ll miss the fun of getting beat down on the path of glory in HFP at level 58 when you have to cross over to get to the opposite faction’s tanks/catapaults.
Ah.. but the point is not to skip “NEW” content.. And just because you CAN fly, doesn’t mean you HAVE to.. If you’d like to get beat down on the path of glory, be my guest
…
They have already gone down this route with the speedier leveling in Outland. There is no reason to ever have to go to Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley anymore.. At 68 you move to Northrend and you might not even have stepped into the Blade’s Edge Mountains..
I’m not sure how I feel about this stick business. It sounds ominous.
With heirloom shoulders, my druid went from Hellfire Penninsula to Zangarmarsh to Negrand to Howling Fjord. No Blade’s Edge Mountains — which I feel somewhat guilty about, since a RL friend of mine was one of the quest designers for that zone. The BEM quests aren’t bad, but without a flying mount the terrain is a pain and a half.
Ooh, that’s pretty cool. I do like some of the quests in there..
And I definitely agree they can be very much a pain without a mount.
I love the idea of getting mounts earlier and I guess it makes sense now since we have 20 more levels since the original Warcraft. Although questing is sooo much faster than it was, getting that mount will be sweet:)
I’m concerned about that stick myself.. I hope it doesn’t hurt TOO much!
I’m torn on the mount thing. On the one hand, it might get me to leveling my shaman and my mage, since both of them are right about 20. But on the other, I really wish this would have happened earlier, since my priest is halfway through level 70 in Northrend, and it would have made Outland SO much easier if we could have been flying the whole time!
Still, what’s done is done, and she will wait until 77 to fly.
Mmmmm. Stick.
I do like a good bit of stick.
*ahem*