Cryptically, mysteriously, Blizzard folks (including Game Director Ion Hazzikostas) have hinted that when we journey to the Shadowlands, the experience might not be quite in sync with the rest of Azeroth.
We know that time can move differently in different places. Turalyon and Alleria were gone from our reality for roughly 25 years, but to them the time that passed was 1,000, fighting at the heart of the Burning Legion (this is also why I think the Lightforged Draenei might literally be a million years old, if they spent their entire 25,000 year exile in the same time-dilated region.)
In Shadowlands, we're arguably going farther away than we've ever been before, into a literal other plane of existence. If a place like Argus, which was maybe kinda in the Twisting Nether but also possibly not exactly, can have that kind of time-warping effect, there's no reason to think that the Shadowlands could work very differently indeed.
The way I see it, if they want to play around with this concept, they could do it one of two ways:
The simpler to implement would be that our time in the Shadowlands is similarly shorter from an outside perspective. We spend two years on the inside, but to Azeorth, we're only in there for a short time, or it even looks instantaneous.
The consequence for that, of course, would be that we'd be falling back into a world that is still recovering from the massive Horde/Alliance war, and people might disbelieve the crazy travails we've been through.
The other, to my mind more interesting, but certainly harder to implement version, is that our two years gets elongated on the outside.
I doubt they'd jump super far into the future - there are enough NPCs that we're invested (that aren't super-long lived elves or draenei) that we wouldn't want to miss out on. Can you imagine getting back from the Shadowlands to find Anduin's half-dragon daughter is now Queen of Stormwind (stay with me, they've got to have some way to magically make Wrathion physiologically female so that he can be the royal consort, right? That's what we're all expecting, right?) One in which Genn Greymane has died of old age and Fenran Thaurissan is King of the Bronzebeard and Dark Iron Clans?
Still, what's more conceivable to me is that we could do a shorter time-jump. Maybe the two years we spend in the Shadowlands looks more like ten years outside.
What might that world look like?
Well, for one thing, Azeroth's been in crisis mode for the past three and a half decades. What other threats might have arisen in that time?
Missing a decade of Azerothian history could lead to some crazy situations. What if we arrive to find that Vanessa VanCleef (who is still alive, in case you didn't play a Rogue in Legion) has become a powerful crimelord and taken over half of Stormwind's territories? What if Night Elf fanatics burn down Orgrimmar? What if ex-Legion demons corrupt the Illidari, no longer devoted to Sargeras' plans, but just trying to spread chaos and destruction wherever they can?
What if the Alliance and Horde aren't even there when we get back? Fractured and broken?
Or, alternatively, what if our absence marks a time of remarkable stability?
Maybe the peace between the Alliance and Horde holds longer than it ever has before? Embassies are established, and peaceful summits and treaties are signed? What if we return to Orgrimmar, shocked to find human merchants and draenei artificers hard at work in the Valley of Honor?
Much of the Warcraft setting is built around the endless cycle of hatred, but I'm actually kind of intrigued by the possibilities of a serious, radical shift in the status quo.
This is all very speculative, of course. And given how difficult it was for Cataclysm to work, I don't expect another "old world revamp" is a likely form for another expansion to take.
But the game has also allowed its established locations to be more dynamic in recent years. Sure, I'm sad that I don't get to go to Undercity anymore (well, except via bronze dragon NPC,) but I also like that it allows the story to move forward in major ways.
Blizzard is taking us far away from anything established, and that allows for some things to change while we're not looking. Now, to be fair, the same could be said for Warlords of Draenor, in which it feels like everything on Azeroth basically just stopped while we were over there (which is part of why it felt like Vol'jin was Warchief for like five minutes). But I think there's an opportunity here, which I hope Blizzard takes.
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