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Looking at those required rankings for a lot of the gear I'm inclined to agree that the intent is to get people engaging a bit more with trying to progress in arenas, rather than just playing 10 for the points and resetting the team if it drops too low. The rewards are spaced to give a progression path for those keen to work their way into arenas:
First step, hit 1550 to get access to the legs. Provided there's a large enough pool of average players in the 1500 ish bracket this should only take a run of a few games to be achievable. It's an accessible goal that most people should have a shot at, particularly since they don't need to hold the rating, just hit it briefly.
After that the progression's pretty simple - couple more wins will offer you the bracers and a bit more improvement beyond that the chest. The difference between 1500 and 1600 in that regard suddenly becomes extremely significant rather than just a matter of a few more points, offering the casual PVPer a series of distinct goals. All well and good in theory and something I appreciate as a fairly casual PVPer myself. The concern however, as others have raised, is that it does rather feel like these ratings have been put together assuming those values are as easy to achieve as they are now. Should arena interest drop instead of rise, with those dropping out being the less capable players, what was an accessible and straightforward progression and incentive to improve play suddenly becomes a far more significant gear block. Certainly the S3 gear's hardly terrible but the incentive of new gear actually being achievable, even if it's not that much better or quick to get, is a pretty big part MMO activites.
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