The thing that makesPvP servers so great is the way that worldpvp works in general, the genuine spontaneity that you get from good fights during questing or dailies or just the people who you randomly run into throughout the world. That was the thing that made the Isle of Quel'danas so great, especially because there was no way of flying away from people and just removing yourself from it all or the newly implemented areas count as a sanctuary, giving a place to run to.
Even on quel'danas, there were guards, but it didn't completely limit you from attacking people. As far as I know, the reason that the great fun that was had at QD onpvp servers was taken out of the game when WOTLK reared its head was because of raiders complaining about the inability to get their dailies done.
On QD, things like would happen like a horde killing an ally, then an ally bringing another ally to kill the horde, and a great big battle starting from it all consisting of the people who ran by and noticed a fight. Also, in my opinion, the greatest 1vs1 fights take place in an open world areas without duel area limit restrictions or the interferences that occur during battlegrounds.
It seems very unjust to deny people the fun that can be had from playing this game simply because people who don't likepvp and would rather be playing the exact same game that they currently play on a PvE server, don't like the interactions between people that come from playing on apvp server.
The spontaneity that comes from worldpvp is NOT something that can be replicated in battlegrounds, which tend to get very very stale after a while. During Burning Crusade, if one ever got bored, there was always fun to be had on the Isle of QD. The same could be said for the amazing amount of fun that happened at Blackrock Mountain back in vanilla, or in Hillsbrad Foothills, or STV, or any number of other areas.
That doesn't happen anymore. The options that are given to people are either go raid in this particular instanced area, go arena in that particular instances area, or go play battleground in that other instanced area. The thing that made this game feel like a world was being able to run into other people in that world and enjoy the hi-jinks that would doubtless ensue.
Currently, In WOTLK, it really just feels like a travel between various instanced zones, andpvp feels like something that should only be happening when you go into an arena or a battleground, thus what is the point of playing on apvp server at all if the only time that you canpvp is during times and places that are set under strict limitations and carefully balanced so as not to bother the raiders who seem to be the ones playing the real game, whereaspvp seems to be the gimp little brother that wow forgot about.
I'm hoping that, come cataclysm and the return to Azeroth which has (so far) remained free of flying mounts and felt like a genuine world that one can run about in, worldpvp will make some sort of return, not just in the form of something stale and boring like the Towers in eastern plaguelands that no one cares about, or Wintergrasp, which is just a big fight between vehicles, but something which genuinely fun, like the fights that used to take place at the argent stand in eastern plaguelands before the rediculously overpowered guards were implemented to protect the raiders on their way to naxxramus and tell us people who play on apvp server for thepvp to bugger off.
This is not to put down raiding in any way, it can be quite fun, but raiding should not have to come at the detriment of those who play onpvp servers for the fun of thepvp that takes place all over the game.
Open world zones are a lot more fun to fight in than the exact same battleground over and over again. Please give us PvPers our fun back.