I withdraw my question.

so it didnt take an 18 hour a day multi month grind to pick up a few weapons. Its more casual friendly.

It was a piece of shit.

Oook...

First of all, battlegrounds != honor system. If you want to discuss WSG/AB/AV you should think of a better thread title.

Secondly, the primary reason for the honor system change was probably the fact that honor decayed in the old system, preventing most players from consistently ranking up. The new system is more "casual" friendly.

The PvP changes were not intended to fix the apparent factional BG domination, it was changed to fix an obviously broken system. Personally I like the changes because now I can cherry pick a certain item and can work towards that specific goal without having to be divorced by my wife and fired from my job. The fact that the GM/HW gear is easier to get for the average guy like myself is likely very appealing to Blizzard because of the repeated and tiresome Casual vs Raider loot arguments.

Because the old honor system required not only a large amount of time invested, but a continual investment of that time - rank decay meant that you had to keep working, every week. The new one allows for a longterm "earning" of PvP rewards, especially the skill/ranking based earnings from the arena.

The old system was horrible, and encouraged burnout, not PvP. I know I don't PvP for rank, I PvP because I want to PvP. Picking up an item or two (probably the R14 sword so I have a decent SS weapon) will just be a side bonus.