According to Blizzard, they don't even have access to the original source code. Instead starting from some version they happened to be able to recover.
When you say "nigh identical to the old version in all the ways that matter", what you are saying is that the game is identical in the ways that matter to you. Some of us actually value the original 1.0 experience. Just for example, the original WoW never had server transfers or "layers" in the game.
According to Blizzard, they don't even have access to the original source code. Instead starting from some version they happened to be able to recover.
When you say "nigh identical to the old version in all the ways that matter", what you are saying is that the game is identical in the ways that matter to you. Some of us actually value the original 1.0 experience. Just for example, the original WoW never had server transfers or "layers" in the game.