Cataclysm may not have been a very popular expansion, and the extreme linearity of questing in most of the top level zones engendered some ill will (though in the low-level zones it was a bit of a godsend.) Still, looking back on it, and having a big endgame like Mists, there were some interesting ideas introduced in Cataclysm.
I've often talked about the strange interaction between the Old Gods and the Burning Legions - two forces that theoretically have the same goal (destroying Azeroth) but nevertheless seem utterly opposed to one another.
To summarize, if I can make this brief: Nether energy, which you could consider the defining trait of all things demonic, seems to provide some sort of immunity to the effects of the Old Gods' corruption, even if Nether energy twisted into Fel energy (the most common form of it among Demons) is a corruption itself.
There is a distinction - the Warlock Green Fire chain shows us this, showing how Illidan's demonic servants did not have the Fel green look to them because they were fed by a different source of Nether energy.
More to the point: the Old Gods never seem to be able to corrupt demons, or the product of demons, such as the Scourge (though as I said in a recent post, there might actually be something paradoxically Titanic going on with the Scourge.) Still, the Scourge is able to exist surrounded by the congealed blood of an Old God and don't seem the worse for wear (well... not that they had a lot more to wear out.) The only people we do see going crazy from Saronite in Icecrown are the Argent Dawn prisoners in the Saronite Mine in Ymirheim. The Lich-King-empowered Vrykul, or Ymirjar, and the Val'kyr there are totally fine, even though I'm sure Darkspeaker R'khem (the only friendly faceless one we're likely to see) is standing right there.
We tend to think of anyone interacting with the Old Gods as going totally insane, like Twilight's Hammer or the various people we've seen succumb to madness (Deathwing, for instance.) The various Aqir races don't seem totally insane, and were actually able to build up empires in service to the Old Gods, but if we accept that they were created by the Old Gods in the first place (and to be fair, that is up for debate,) we might be able to accept that the Old Gods built in a little insanity-protection so that the Qiraji, Mantid, and Nerubians would be able to serve them better (though I'm still a little unclear on the Nerubians. They send us to kill Herald Volazj in Ahn-Kahet, but wouldn't they be on his side, as long as they weren't scourgified? And if they were scourge, wouldn't they not want us to kill Elder Nadox or whatever his name is?)
But there is an entire race that was corrupted by the Old Gods, transformed from their old forms into new, monstrous ones: the Naga. They don't seem to be insane - they're just evil. Now sure, they could be more subtly insane, like the members of the Black Dragonflight, who were able to pursue their goals methodically and intelligently even though they were nuts, but I wonder if there's a different explanation.
The Naga have always felt slightly separate from the Old Gods, with their own goals and their own motivations (mainly, letting Queen Azshara retake her position as the ruler of all Azeroth.) Perhaps there is a reason for this:
Before she became a Naga, Azshara was the one who allowed the Burning Legion to invade Azeroth during the War of the Ancients. Azshara had already been a gifted sorceress, and she offered to become Sargeras' bride when he arrived on Azeroth. We can assume, then, that there was a whole boatload of fel magic going through Azshara and her forces. In fact, an entire race of demons was created from Night Elves - the Satyrs.
Azshara and the Naga represent something unprecedented in Azeroth - the fusion of Fel power with Old God corruption. Azshara has an alliance with the Old Gods, but the remaining fel energy in her people provides them independence.
The Naga have never really be center-stage villains in World of Warcraft, but they are certainly a formidable foe. In Vashj'ir, we discover that Azshara has a MASSIVE army at her disposal, and one that is supplemented by her faceless allies.
Not only that, but our attempt to rescue Neptulon from her forces in the Throne of the Tides was ultimately a failure (Vashj'ir was a dark zone,) so now she could be potentially adding the power of an Elemental Lord to her arsenal.
I know that the Burning Legion itself is a serious threat that we're definitely going to have to deal with sooner or later, but with the Scourge held back by the Jailor of the Damned, Garrosh's disastrous war about to end, and Deathwing blasted to smithereens, Azshara is sitting very comfortably at the top of the list of biggest dangers on Azeroth.
We might want to deal with that.
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