Yeah that is odd. "Normalized gear" is a feature that really should be an option for PvP.
Overall, I like that Blizzard is actually adding new ideas this expansion, even though I don't agree with all of them. Cata was about revamping, refining, and pruning stuff that didn't work well (e.g. talent tree talents), but it had a distinct lack of "new".
I do think it's kind of funny how Blizzard enjoys directly copying ideas from other popular games: e.g. Pokemon (pet battles), TF2 (payload), DotA (duh), and Marathon et al. (Murderball). Oh well, if it's fun, I don't much care where it came from.