indeed, you can't wait for everyone to clear MC and Onyxia before BWL is allowed to come
and as Zipzo says, the content won't be gone when more Raids are available. It will still be a must to run those, that's the beauty of WoW in Vanilla and TBC.
But i disagree with you Zipzo when you believe that BWL will "last" longer. In a way, BWL will not even stand as long as MC did (yes, that's possible
).
So the right timing for BWL is absolutely critical imo. and it's hard to tell when the right time is. One thing is for sure, there will be a much longer gap between BWL and AQ than there will be between MC and BWL.
But if BWL gets cleared the same id it opens (which will surely happen, if it doesn't get tuned up) these guilds will farm BWL for easily more than half a year until AQ hits and that will give these guilds such gear advantages that it makes AQ trivial as well and that would be a huge bummer.
A good example is another server that has been waiting for AQ release for over a year alrdy (of russian origin, begins with the letter "V"). People on that server in raiding guilds are all standing there in FULL BIS GEAR, they even have BIS gear for off specs because they farmed BWL for so long. Going into AQ with such gear can't even be fun anymore, it's a joke.
And that's why i am suggesting to tune up the raids from this point forward (at least 40man content). The players are too knowledgeable of the vanilla content and the 1.12 talents make all content before Naxxramas way easier than they were back then. (Fire Mages alone make a huge difference in AQ, we're lucky these speccs aren't viable in MC and BWL)
It is for these reasons mainly why i can only stress it out to tune up these raids. Give the Guilds some challenges that they have to go through. Some proper "progress" experience is what it's about. Nobody can tell me that you want more "walks in the park" type of raid dungeons
And Chero, you say it yourself to let the server last longer, you wanna wait a little more before releasing more content, this makes sense! And tuning up the upcoming 40 man raids makes the exact same sense for the same reason.
But anyway, i'm way off the topic again. Zipzo is asking for an EST, yes it makes sense to have an EST and yes it would be great for the server to release BWL before Nostrils, but i gotta doubt that it will have the huge impact on our population if that happens. Most people don't switch servers that easily.
Also keep in mind, if you announce BWL too long in advance, you know that Nostrils will react on such an announcement. You saw how they stole Kronos' hype by copying the advertisement strategies and places, they will do the same rush when they see that Kronos is about to release BWL in a couple of months.