Which also means gear should be balanced to put everyone on the same level. It should award cosmetic gear (hey look at that, it already does and it's a timed-exclusive among PLENTY of other things) and everyone's iLvl and stats should be equalized. Since again, it's about skill, not gear, right?
If you can just wreck someone because you have all TF and socketed gear and they didn't get any, even if they're a better player, well that's clearly unfair bullshit. Raiding and M+ inflates this further over PvP players who don't have the time to do all that.
Templates should absolutely come back and be increased each season (to keep up with PvE and mix it up a bit) so skill can overcome gear. This would also break the complaint held by many PvPers that they need to PvE to do PvP. Win-win for everyone.