I said it in WoW and I say it again, those gear grinds are idiotic beyond measure when it comes to PvP. It just gets more and more frustrating for casual players and those who just started because they get more and more heavily abused and quite often not even by better players, but skill cannot compensate limitlessly against gear differences.
At some point the gear difference is so big that skill cannot compensate at all for it and this is one of the major frustrations, when you die so fast that you cannot even start to improve your skill.
I know some will now cry "but we had to go through it too" to which I can only respond:
1.) Two wrongs do not make a right.
2.) You probably still had it easier because the gear difference at that point was not as big.
Real PvPers do not give a **** about gear. The whole gear grind is stupid regardless how easy or hard it is and I have been countless of times through it in WoW already. It's boring and doesn't add anything to PvP. At all.
In fact it substracts from the experience because there is neither fun in stopming undergeared players nor is it fun to get stomped. It also gives a false impresion of skill or false impression of lack of skill.