Just wanted to add my take to this, though obviously being almost the same as the OP.
It is an issue that needs to be addressed asap. Before they can even start thinking about open world pvp, open world pvp drops etc, as addressed in some earlier posts by bioware, the need the fundamentals for it first.
I was very surprised, crashing in the midst of the battle, only to realize that my gpu cores were under the following load:
CPU core 1: 40%
CPU core 2: 1%
I know they can do it better... If put on idle on the loading screen, both cores goes up to 90%.
I hope light will be shed upon this subject asap, before this is addressed, there is no basis for further development for open world pvp, well... pvp in general (except arenas QQ).