The Expertise stat has to go...

Hmm... you see, the problem with your argument is that in the games I've been in where there is PvP gear, there hasn't been a problem with people not wanting to play. The problem has been people wanting to play on the side that wins all the time. I hate to use a WoW example but how many people re-rolled to horde to be on the winning side, rather than trying to work together and win on alliance? I know of at least 20 people who over my time in WoW said they were switching purely because of PvP.

Also, do you think I want to PvP with, or against, people who spit their dummy out and throw a tantrum when they have to go through the same process as everyone else to get geared up? I mean...seriously...would you whine that it's too hard to get raiding gear to do the top end raids? I suspect not, because people know, in general, that if you want to be good in raids you need to put quite a lot of effort into it. Why people think the same should not apply to PvP and they should be able to step into an arena with someone who's been PvPing all day every day and be able to have the same gear as them is beyond me.

I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people who are 50 and geared up either started PvPing early, and got their *** handed to them, or started PvPing at 50 and got their asses handed to them. Those that are geared are the ones that were willing to put up with not being SUPER UBER FANTASTIC SUPERMAN straight away and knew they had to put some time and effort into excelling at what they do. I'm also willing to bet that half the people who whine about this don't change their specs for PvPing and go rolling in specced for PvE and expect to be brilliant.

They just need to add the NPCs in Drummond Kaas they sold the blue 50 expertise gear back in.

I haven't read all the messages in this thread so I dunno if someone has already mentioned this: What about the Guild Wars model?

In that game everyone in pvp had the same level gear i.e. two rangers had identical stats on their gear, two mesmers had the same etc. In this venue pvp was one based only on knowledge + skill, no gear advantage whatsoever was included. Everyone entered the battle on equal footing.

Subsequently, the rewards in that game were purely aesthetic, but were cool enough to make the grind rewarding. I know I spent more time then I should have grinding to get the look I wanted.

I apologize if this has already been discussed, otherwise I would like to know why this might or might not work.

I disagree. I mean, yeah sure, a PvP stat is kind of a dumb idea. But what else would we do? PvP needs a reward system, just like PvE...

Raid gear vs people who do not want to raid

WoW calls it Resilience
Rift calls it Valor
TOR calls it Expertise

If they make PvP gear as good as raid gear (without needing a PvP stat) then raiders will be angry that you can bring BM armor to raids.