so did this expansion work out are the players back were the dragons cool
Dragonflight seems to have done even worse than Shadowlands. With every WoW expansion prior to Dragonflight, Blizzard proudly announced that the expansion release had been some record breaking number. Dragonflight is the first expansion where Blizzard did not say that. In fact, Dragonflight is also the first expansion that has had half a dozen 50% off discount sale while the expansion was current. That's how I came back in the first place: 4 months after Dragonflight launched, they offered a 50% off discount sale. Dragonflight also introduced a FOMO battle pass system that offers stuff that was previously exclusive stuff, like Collector's Edition pets, probably in a last ditch attempt to bolster retention.
My guess is that the past ten years of WoW have steadily alienated the playerbase, with BFA and Shadowlands in particular burning off a lot of the hanger ons. Now you're left with a niche of hardcore players who are content with doing the same raid over and over for 9 months or speedrunning the same half dozen dungeons over and over for 6 months.