Like it or not, Arenas are here to stay. I think we should all learn to live with that. A couple of days ago, Kalgan showed up on the Beta forums and put up a lengthy, illuminating post about Blizzard's philosophy when it comes to PvP itemization. He talked about and mostly defended Arenas and the existence of Arena ratings for obtaining PvP gear. It goes a long way towards explaining the new tiered itemization -- an impressive three tiers that appear to be concurrently available -- within the PvP system.

One poster's contention was that there was no access to PvP gear before engaging in Arenas was countered with Kalgan mentioning their efforts to include craftable PvP gear. This was an omission in The Burning Crusade that became apparent as the seasons progressed, with newer players or Level 70s struggling to break into the Arena format faced against opponents who had gathered gear through several Arena seasons. This was addressed philosophically with the introduction of Outlands reputation PvP gear, which were identical to the rare PvP sets obtainable through Honor. I say philosophically because by the time these item sets became available to players, it was too late. Starting Arenas at that point would find players matched up against other players wearing epic gear from the past seasons. In fact, wearing such dated gear only served to mark the player as easy targets.