I think this is the first time I've ever bothered to log in and post here.
As I gear up to BM for the third time, I have to completely agree with you. I have been thinking this exact same thing all weekend.
My first character, it was OK. The game was new, people in BM were few and far between, most people had mainly pve gear, and you couldnt augment the BM set (or even take the mods out). Then they patched it, 0you could take the mods out and put them into gear with augment slots. By this time I had my BM set, but didnt feel like buying augmented gear. Even then though, the discrepancy wasnt that bad (probably because I was in full BM).
Then I leveled an alt and 1-49 pvp was decent, then I hit 50 and it was like hitting a brick wall. I couldnt really touch anyone, even in the recruit gear. Their gear was just that much better than mine.
The third time I do it, its even worse. A lot of people have full augmented WH now and just absolutely destroy me in PVP. When I hit 50, I could buy 4 pieces of my BM set, and even that wasnt enough. It took about 7 pieces before I even felt useful, and until I got the full set to feel competetive.
I like your suggestion because it does not invalidate the gear progression in any way. Its still there, and its for ranked, and you can gear up on a level playing field, then step into the next tier at whatever point you want. This should be implemented at the same time as ranked solo queues, so people dont complain they cant find a premade to get their WH stuff, so they in turn cant gear up, so theyre locked out of end game content, and so their end game gear is worthless to them now because they cant 4 hit-kill a sorc in full recruit every time they run into them, etc etc.
So in short, 10-49 pvp = fun, 50 pvp on your way up to full BM = not fun, 50 pvp after youre in full BM = fun. Simple fix, normalize the only one thats not.
They could also fix this by removing the valor requirement on BM gear, or removing the cap on valor under level 50. I had 600 med packs and stims (12000 commendations)by the time I hit 40 on my assassin. I could have bought my BM set 2 or 3 times had I been able to buy it while under level 40.