For sure, having a shorter than 6-month WOTLK Gold period for alpha evaluation, testing beta, pre-patch (which generally lasts for a couple of weeks) and the expansion release may seem like a short time frame. But it's not unrealistic like some on the forum have suggested on Reddit.
In a blog post by WoW creator MrGM dissected the number of days between alpha testing for previous expansions and an expansion's release date. This number is between about 188 days, at the earliest and 281 days at the latest. There's 192 days left in 2022. which is a good comparison.
Another post by Reddit user Jeth84 reviewed release dates for all previous WoW expansions and concludes that if Dragonflight does come out this year, it'll be almost on time for what's typically a two-year interval between expansions. In theory Dragonflight's 2022 release date would coincide with the timeframe.
However, it's worth keeping in mind the issues Blizzard is facing over the past several years that could have potentially affected the growth of Dragonflight, for instance, a significant part of the team working from home as a result of COVID-19 along with other issues (including employees striking and walking out) that result from the numerous legal cases and investigations that have plagued Blizzard over the past 11 months.
However there are reasons for players to be positive about the chances of Dragonlfight being released in 2022. Many fans have theorized that Dragonflight could be further in the future than they expected, due to cheap WOTLK Gold Blizzard shifting resources away from Shadowlands over the last two years, focusing more in the next expansion.
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