Update: This will not affect quest experience.
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This isn't very surprising, but Blizzard wants you to move on to new expansions when you reach a certain level. And today Nethaera revealed a fairly significant alteration to the way players gain experience, based on your level and the content you're doing at the time.
This only affects NPCs that you kill; quest experience rewards will remain the same. Essentially, once you reach the maximum level for an expansion, all of the creatures involved in that expansion will only reward 10% of their normal experience values. So, at level 60 you'll need to move on to Burning Crusade content, level 70 for Wrath, and level 80 for Cataclysm.
Examples:
Level 60 or higher players get 10% normal experience for killing creatures in Azeroth (“Old world” content)
Level 70 or higher players get 10% of normal experience for killing Burning Crusade creatures.
Level 80 or higher players get 10% of normal experience for killing Lich King creatures.
Level 85 or higher players get 10% of normal experience for killing Cataclysm creatures.
It sounds like this is in response to players grinding out additional levels in the older areas -- for one reason or another -- instead of moving on. Nethaera mentions the "ease" of content being a major factor in players sticking around after they've outgrown a zone. But then again, they're also missing out on a ton of great upgrades from quest rewards -- especially new characters -- so it's not exactly advantageous to keep grinding away in old areas anyway.
The change is a strange one, but maybe I'm just missing something that happened recently to bring it about.
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