(And first, no, a lack of response from him up till now didn't imply any subtexts... it just meant he was busy and/or checking with the class devs and I wasn't going to bug him again till I heard back!)
His response is this (paraphrased):
- Any retained features that are actual buffs are a definite no-no. Anything that affects class balance by buffing your pet is out.
- For anything that just affects cosmetics/appearance, you have to use your best judgement. If another player could conceivably get upset because it somehow affects gameplay - making it difficult to target, obscuring vision, (maybe looking like a worgen player?
) etc. then the upset player could conceivably report it and the pet would most likely be taken away. It's very unlikely anyone would get banned and it wouldn't be very nice if they were. If you did get banned over a purely cosmetic buff, he said to mention it. If it's just a little blue aura or something that you use for pve or solo or wehatever, it's highly unlikely anyone will care.Then again if you already had a pet removed because the cosmetic buff was causing issues that made players report it, and you went and did exactly the same thing again, I imagine you'd be treated with less sympathy
(my own words, not his)EDIT: also forgot to mention that Blizzard are working towards more stringent fixes for retained buffs, but I was given no time frame on that. Not sure if anyone is currently working on appearance-only ones.
