If anything iLvL will remain the biggest determinant of whether you get in groups.
Also, I frankly don’t understand the need for Blizzard to include a gimmick in each expansion. In Legion it was the artifacts, in BFA it’s the necklace, and in SL it’s the Covenants. I don’t see why they don’t just make each class kit more interesting and leave it at that… I frankly don’t mind if Covenants were just purely cosmetic…