The only thing I have to say is, to improve doesn't mean following in another game's footsteps. It's a brand new game, and it's continuously going to improve and have its miscorrections fixed.
WoW has been live since... 2004-2005? I played since vanilla, and it's completely a different game now. Arena isn't the best thing offered in WoW (that's your opinion). I agree with your post, but you're supposed to judge the game as a whole, not compare it to the game you were addicted to for years. If you're going to use WoW as your comparison, please at least be a classic player or something.. because arena wasn't around when it launched.
TOR has its problems and various bugs, but the community is only growing. It takes people reporting bugs and asking questions & making suggestions for a game to grow. When you're level 50, it may be a different story for you. But at least TOR doesn't have 100 trolls on trade chat, constantly.. at least not on my server. And for that sole reason
My opinion is TOR > WoW
Give Bioware & EA 7-8 years in the making,
and they'll blow today's WoW outta the water.