Out of curiosity I flew over to Stratholme to take a look, and I have some thoughts I'd like to share. I started with the front gate, and overall the place doesn't look much different. I noticed the enemy levels have already been adjusted. I liked to see the quest givers right at the beginning, and then showing up after Balnazzar went down. Quite convenient, especially for people who queue up on the Dungeon Finder.
I found it a fitting irony that the Scarlet pests would be turned into what they hated the most, though I can't help wondering if we'll ever be able to kill Balnazzar and bis brothers for good. Other than that... Well, the short speech Eligor Dawnbringer delivered was nice and promising, and I noticed the Argent Crusade reinforcements appearing all over town. Excited at what I was hoping would be a change at least in the city's outside look via phasing, I went back out, entered through the side gate and picked up the quests at the chapel.
I was a bit saddened that there was no option to redeem Aurius, nor an explanation of how he fell, though I imagine that had something to do with the Blood Knights desecrating the chapel. The quest to get the holy water was meh, since it's very random if you find a bottle or not, and most of the crates are full of vermin.
Overall, I was given the impression that we were doing something important and historical in the Plaguelands, but all I got was another short speech by Eligor at the end of the instance and more Argent reinforcements. I was kind of hoping that Tirion would show up and the Argents would start consecrating the place. I can't help wondering if Stratholme's revamp is still in progress.
Other than that, I found it weird that the painting of Tirion's family would be back in the Scarlet stronghold like it was about six years ago, considering that Taelan is confirmed dead, and the events of the chain Tirion still gives on live seem by all accounts to have taken place.
Stratholme is a place with a deep significance for those who have played through it in vanilla, and I was hoping the changes to the Plaguelands would culminate in a phased quest chain to reclaim it and tear down the Scholomance once and for all.
I should be checking the culmination of the struggle for Andorhal next, as soon as the bug with the quest in Uther's tomb is fixed. I'm wondering if the end result is the same for both factions and if so, what happened to Thassarian and what he's going to do about a certain event.

Appreciate all the feedback and bug reports for this. I've corrected the achievement so it's not asking you to kill Baron Rivendare anymore.

As far as why we want to keep the portcullis closed, it's because the two "sides" are now different levels of creatures. We don't want lower level people doing the city street section then going over to the scourge section and getting pounded by higher level creatures. It also keeps players from veering off the track that leads them to the boss they need to kill to gain their LFG reward.