It's worse than that since you do it out of reflex and it is less engaging than what you're describing (though I never played WoW).
Dragging the camera (with a mouse down, move and release) would cause it to rotate around the player's ship until some artificial 'drag' decided the spin should slow to a stop. It was one of those innocent and functionally useless UI features, that is surprisingly satisfying to preform.
...I'm not the only one? Oh thank god