Evidence of Subraces?

WoWHead has actually uncovered some potential evidence of potential subraces coming in the next expansion.

Whoo-boy!

The article lays it out fully, but the gist is that there are four sets of "race" data in the 7.3 files that you would get with any kind of character model that can equip armor. Now, this is not an uncommon thing - any humanoid race that can equip different kinds of armor, like Naga or Vrykul, will have similar files.

The distinction here is that each of these has a non-zero value for determining the background for the character select screen. The aforementioned NPC races do not have such a thing.

The four races they found are Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei, and "Void Elf."

Now, obviously these are all tied to Legion, and would probably have to exist for this patch, though of course the Highmountain Tauren and Nightborne would have to have been in since 7.0.

Speculation abounds, of course. In the case of the Tauren and Draenei variants, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to add those to the existing factions of their brethren.

The elves are less obvious. Nightborne, while certainly related to the Highborne that would become the High Elves and then the Blood Elves, are still probably more physiologically similar to the Night Elves. But dialogue between Silgryn and Lady Liadrin aboard the Vindicaar suggests that the Nightborne would be more likely to join the Horde, connecting with Quel'thalas.

The Void Elves, of course, would probably be brought in by Alleria, and if we assume that she's recruiting among the High Elves, that this would probably be a Blood Elf subrace.

So perhaps the elf subraces would allow players to get the other faction's elves.

A lot of questions come up with this. Obviously, the first is whether this is actually indicative of what we're going to hear about at Blizzcon, but if we assume that's a yes, then we have the following:

First off, would subraces be purely cosmetic or would they have their own racial features?

Second, is this it? Because there are some other very obvious subrace options for, for example, Orcs and Dwarves.

Third, is this going to be something one can change in-game with ease? Or will we have to either start new characters or pay to change things?

Fourth: are there going to be class restrictions on any of these? Because I'm really tempted, if this is real, to have a Lightforged Draenei Death Knight (I don't roleplay, but I do have a story in my head for my Death Knight, and it would actually make a lot of sense for him to leave Argus officially redeemed by the Naaru.)

So, big caveat here is that this is all datamining, and not even in an Alpha or Beta patch. But given that, according to the pattern kept by every expansion except for Warlords, we're due for new races, this might be a way to give people something like that by bringing in stuff that has existed in-game for a long time.

Not that I don't want truly new races.