Ya know I feel like this doesn't get mentioned enough. I genuinely don't understand why regular battlegrounds haven't had anything remotely useful as rewards for like a decade.
I don't play SWTOR a ton (maybe 2 months out of the year?), but when I do it's pretty much always to level/story and then hop in some warzones. They actually give currency you can use for real gear! Imagine.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the PvP gearing is way, way more punishing than PvE because you have to beat actual people who keep getting better and better over the years. And doing arena is completely different than just hopping into a random BG, way more than the gulf between doing a regular dungeon and an m+ one.
(Also frankly their bolster system is way better for casual players so you don't instantly get annihilated all the time)