Not only did they make use of elevators which are rather easy, in hyjal there are quite a few blocker-quests, that prevent you a) from progressing through the zone if you dont do them and save the grove, and b) require you do dive in lakes and fly over hills to the area where the quest is done, not to forget c) special mechanics like climbing up trees, collecting little bears and throw them down to a druid which takes care of them.
For now i would say neither hyjal nor vashir can be done as quest profile and grinding there also isnt really an option imho.