If people want to work towards something, I recommend heirlooms. Retirement will be back soon, and the only condition will be level 31.
I don't know if heirlooms are currently strong or hardly worth it, if it's the latter, they might get a buff. I'll check with the items team.
Also, there will be a, how should I put it without revealing too much, very special set of "skills" that you can acquire soon, in another way than simply leveling. This should make things very interesting for people that want to have more persistance to their char, without breaking the balance that the game has currently recieved (aka not making them godlike).
Now let me get back to finishing that patch, just dropped in here to announce this
.