Racials made less of a difference and people still went for them, because they ended up being the deciding factor in a great many matches anyway. The smallest of differences can swing a game entirely. Even 1% is the difference between being dead and having that heal land before the person dies. 2.2k used to be "the wall" for most people because it was where they started running into teams with weapons.
The weapons had less of an impact but they pretty much kept teams from further advancing as they played almost exclusively against people with those who had them leading to them stagnating as they fought a constant uphill battle. The moment they aquired them they often jumped 2-300 points from where they were stuck prior. Thus claiming it's of no essence and wont have a big impact is either being uninformed on this matter or being dishonest. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and roll with uninformed.
And this is just outright trolling. It's like saying "you don't need to gear yourself for mythic raids, it's a choice but not a requirement", sure you wont actually be able to beat anything, nor will you ever progress or be capable of winning but you can totaly get 20 other fresh 110s together and hit up those mythic raids!
When the season starts even the casual PVE dragonslayers will be angry that they are being stomped in rated play by raid geared players.
Completely agree iwth everything you said except for the above part, 2-3% (which is the realistic difference between someone who did mythics and someone who didn't), you still get 805-840 gear from bg's, really isnt going to make a single difference in pvp, especially since that gap will soon be closed by the gear you get from arena/rbg
The bigger gap will be artifact traits. Nolife grinding points ahead of the curve will make a diffence especially with the special skills granted.