this is the way i believed it to be as well.
and i do understand the concept that everyone is saying "you gotta win to get rewarded". but that's not my issue...
i would say about 25-30% of the time i get in a warzone, it's already started. usually it's almost over. but i don't just run around willy nilly. i'm active immediately and never just sit there and wait for it to end... i'm working my tail end off actually. if i'm lucky i get 1 or 2 medals in instance like that win or lose. but because i didn't get enough medals, i get nothing. no creds (i don't care i make my creds in other ways), but no comms... that really ticks me off. i'm not one of the scrubs sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, i'm fighting, healing, etc.
i'm not a coder or game dev, but i'm sure there's something that can be done to consider the time frame when a player entered a warzone. if someone entered into a game with just a few minutes left to play and they contributed in some way, they shouldn't be penalized because they didn't get a pvp que pop until the end of a warzone. win or lose, medal or not, if they've done a certain amount of damage, and/or healing, etc, give em a few commendations... 5-10 comms wouldn't hurt, really.
edited to add: go figure... right after i posted this i got a voidstar pop. got in on the 2nd round with just over 3 minutes to play. we lost, not surprisingly because in the time i had to play i got the 2nd highest damage on my team. in 3 minutes i had about 115k damage. 2 medals (i think), i believe under the "objectives" column i was at 400 or something... no comms, no creds, nothing.
i understand the point behind not wanting to give "scrubs" a reward for just standing around doing nothing, really i do. and i'm grateful something is being done about it... but i hope there is a way we can address issues like i'm having.
i personally love this game, and don't plan on unsubbing anytime soon. nothing else out there in the mmorpg world that appeals to me at this time. but i'm gonna be very disappointed if pvp continues like this... especially since i just found an awesome spec for my gunslinger