It's an alternative to gearing up through a PvE route (world quests, reps, Order Hall, dungeons, or raids). At worst, it can be useful for latecomers to gear up through PvP thanks to the normalized stat templates, combined with the relatively low cost of each piece after the new changes to Marks of Honor, meaning they won't just be getting rocked by geared players slumming in non-rated content until they can gear up.
As to why, same reason anyone wants new gear. It's the pellets to keep the rats running the maze; classic operant conditioning in its purest form.
Be seeing you guys on Bloodsail Buccaneers NA!
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
I play OW along with millions of other folks, and there is no power reward. It's just fun. So, I don't accept the premise that people will play only for gear if the game is actually fun.
The PvP game became UNfun when BGs became stupid for casuals because of two things:
(1) rated players effectively twinking because of hugely powerful conquest gear
(2) those fucking bots
Also
(3) the era of the 3rd party whole raid premade finder
I went from 115,000 HKs in 2-3 years to a few hundred the years after that. The problem with PvP for the past few years for causual is that it's not fun. The problem is not that the gear reward isn't enough. NO gear reward is enough to make me play max-level PvP from Cataclysm till today.