>I'm not convinced that would have really solved the problem.
It almost certainly would help. When you attempt to delete a world of warcraft character you are prompted with the character's level, among other info. This is the biggest difference you'll see between the delete procedure for a level 1 alt with < 1 hr played and a level 80 (or w/e) character with >10,000 hr played if you've named them similarly.
Because of the relatively low character limit and the popularity of alts, this feature (delete character) gets a lot of use and misuse so it's reasonable to expect the developers to have put some thought in to it.
It almost certainly would help. When you attempt to delete a world of warcraft character you are prompted with the character's level, among other info. This is the biggest difference you'll see between the delete procedure for a level 1 alt with < 1 hr played and a level 80 (or w/e) character with >10,000 hr played if you've named them similarly.
Because of the relatively low character limit and the popularity of alts, this feature (delete character) gets a lot of use and misuse so it's reasonable to expect the developers to have put some thought in to it.