I've tried alternatives. There are no better alternatives, and I say this being as open as I possibly could.
FF14 appealed to me as an alternative that may surpass it. I tried it, I'm a nice leveled white mage, it just doesn't feel as good.
You will never get anything better from the MMORPG industry (everyquest-clones) than WoW is. The dropping subscribers are not because the game has gotten boring, it's because you can't play a game for 8 years and expect it to still be as fresh as it was when you first started.
It's not because content is weaker. In fact, raids in pandaland are probably by far the most active with the most mechanics, due to add-ons such as DBM causing zerg raids to no longer be plausible by a non-derp group. It's because players have played the same game for 8 years and are no longer enjoying it. You get bored of something you do for 8 years. You can't blame a game giant such as blizzard for not making a total revamp in how the game is played, given it'd cause more to quit than it'd bring in (as proven by jagex).