Lifted from a World of Warcraft .com PvP Forum thread.
"The problem is there is a misconception here. hardcore and casual player have 0 to do with time invested.
Lets say bob the hardcore decides to get to the top rank. He plays 12 hours a day doing nothing but pvp for 2 months and gets it. Time invested= approximately 720 hours.
Joe the casual decides he wants to go for the top rank, he unfortunately can only play 4 hours a day. He does this for a year. Time invested aprroximately= 2190 hours.
Now the problem is obviously hardcore players invest LESS time to get to the top ranks. Its not that casual players dont play enough, its that there is no option for someone who plays 4-6 hours a day every day (which isnt even that casualy) to have a chance in their entire lifetime to make the top rank because of the way the system works- aka the ladder system.
I am not even going to go into how retarded the ladder system is because it is based solely on hks/honor which means dps classes are the top contenders. Classes arent balanced against each other 1v1 for pvp but somehow they are considered balanced against each other to be competeing in the same ladder." - Spiraldancer