I hear ya. That was a big draw for me as well: PvP in WoW was always pretty dire in my experience. (I played from vanilla WoW up to Warlords of Draenor.) OW captures the spirit of WoW PvP without most of the horrible downsides. 
WoW is the only game I’ve ever paid a subscription for, and I doubt I’ll do it again. The OW model, where other people buy Kiriko skins and I play the game for free, is much more wallet-friendly.