Back when pvp was active pvp gear was the most expensive and hardest to get in the game. I think it's a chicken or egg situation. No one is in pvp so it doesn't drive revenue. If more people could compete and wanted to pvp it would drive revenue. Now it's speed and gold loot awakes when it used to be primary stats and armor where the most expensive.

Like someone else said though the game moved on from pvp so it doesn't matter but it could drive revenue because it did in the past.