I think most players who speak of “epic wpvp battles” are remembering something that happened once every few years. And in fact they won because they outnumbered the enemy anyway.
I really think a lot of people were deceived into rolling on pvp servers by players misremembering the realities of pvp servers or misrepresenting them.
All my friends rolled on a pvp server. I did not. I know some of them don’t seem to be playing anymore.