PvP wasn't FUN until you caught up in Warlords, because anyone who's been playing would simply stomp on you. Its not fun to run around Ashran, running away from anyone you come across so you don't lose your fragments. It's not fun to go into a BG, and then be a dead weight for the rest of the game. Its not fun to be unable to do Arena, because nobody will invite you at lower ilvls.
Unlocking Concordance takes
1-2 dailies. You don't need
ANY sort of gear to complete those dailies. An additional 10 lvls into Concordance
can be completed by JUST doing all available dailies. Once you reach that point, the actual difference in stats is
500 overall primary stats.. Thats not even a 1% overall DPS gain. Burstwise?
1500 overall primary stats. Your burst is increased by
3%. Yes, reaching 75 is a slog, but you aren't gaining MUCH power from it, compared to what a day full of dailies get you. The biggest gain is
7% Stamina, going from 62 (A day full of dailies) to 75 (A week of grinding AP). It's significant, yes, but not TOO much.
The Netherlight Crucible only represents a
2 overall ilvl gain. You don't reach 75 Artifact lvl for the Netherlight buffs in PvP - You reach 75 Artifact lvl because
that's were most ppl stop working on Concordance, so you can consider yourself "caught up" on AP at that point. Not, however, that reaching just 70 Artifact lvl, which is pretty much half-way to 75 in terms of overall AP cost, shrinks your damage gap to less then 1%, and your stamina gap to 2.4%, miniscule.