Economy Collapse?

Many people believe all the players unable to get to X rating in S4 will simply stop playing. I highly doubt this will be the case. Many arguments are :

"I'm in honor blues and greens and I get stomped by full S3 people they aren't skilled they just started earlier. How am I supposed to compete against them if I get LESS points for fighting them?"
True, you probably aren't much of a challenge in your current gear situation, but you will eventually catch up to them through the purchase of non rating restricted S3 pieces. Just like you don't move from SSC to BT instantly, you do have to acquire intermediary pieces just like all those S3 teams did through S2/etc. That is, unless you are carried by your teammates(also applies to raids). If you must, consider full S3 gear an "attunement" to S4 loot. Not completely true, but for the purposes of the people filing this complaint, valid.

"Theres no reason to play S4 if I can't buy a majority of the S4 rewards"
First of all, two of the pieces do not even require ratings, second you can still purchase most of S3. You can also begin saving for the next iteration of arena in WoTLK if you don't think blizzard will reset arena points. Personally I'm not sure about that, but they did not reset honor for TBC so we'll see.

"All the sub 1500 teams will stop playing and there wont be 2xxx teams because there are no bottom level points being fed into the system."
Not true, people will play 10 games just to get their leftover pieces, offspec S3 pieces, or just out of boredom. Note that with gold being so easy, more and more teams will be feeding rating into the system, as there isnt much reason to continue playing a sub 1400 team each week.

"I'm quitting way to put PR onto everything in the game GG Blizz owning casuals."
Can I have your stuff? Seriously S3 gear isnt even that bad. Yes S4 will be marginally better but WoTLK gear reset is coming soon anyway. For leveling/grinding/dailies, you may kill 3-5% slower than a S4 geared player, but adding travel time to and from quest areas, its really a marginal difference. It would be better to complain about someone getting lucky crits than to complain about the marginal gear difference from S3 to S4.

"My friends suck at WoW or play weird offspecs that aren't suitable for arenas so I can't achieve X rating."
Learn to play better. There aren't that many dysfunctional class comps in arenas, and its not even a problem past 1800ish. Now if you're a prot warrior/paladin in arenas, well a respec isn't that hard to do. Should you have to respec to arena? Well, frankly yes, you do it for raids anyway. Why is the arena any different? Besides, you owe it to your "terrible/offspec friends" to put your best foot forward with respect to arena success, and that does include speccing properly. Also if being on a different arena team is going to kill your friendships, get new friends. If you like to play with them, then feel free to team hop. Unless your "pro" team passes 1650, team hopping isnt particularly detrimental to you or your "pro" team. Even then your "pro" team's members will bring up the average queuing personal rating, so you can get as high as 1950 in a theoretical 3v3 without your team-hop PR of 1500 affecting the team. Of course you will get less points per week if your TR is beyond ~1650 depending on W/L but thats your choice.

As for spec, I've played ret and holy to over 2000 in every bracket and gotten gladiator in S1/S2 as holy in the most complained about brackets(2v2,3v3). Many will claim the class is gimped but 2000 is not that hard to do. It may require more skill than other classes, but that isn't something to complain about really. So for the spec problem for paladins, I'm just going to have to prescribe some over the counter L2P.

"Oh yeah, I've killed Illidan, where is my 310% mount?"
If you were in the raid of the first 0.5% Illidan kills before Sunwell was released, then I will concede you deserve a 310% mount. The rest of you rode on the backs of nerfs/ez lewt/guides. Illidan was the hardest content at the time, but to parallel the actual arena system, you have to be one of the select first people to accomplish the feat.

"You realize 5 people can currently do absolutely nothing and get epix through arenas while its not true in raids?"
Yes and you realize the top of the arena system are inherently better at raiding than a vast majority of raiders? Arena requires strict attention to environmental effects, positioning, cooldowns, abilities and counter abilities, damage that is not controlled by threat, and prediction of damage based on the situation at hand. Constant evaluation of those factors drives arena success. Raids only have watered down portions of these mechanics, making good arena players exceptional raiders. The opposite is almost never true. Also, S4 fixed this and most players are still crying up a storm, seriously just pick one.

"Okay you convinced me. I suck at WoW and will never get beyond 1550."
Good. Realize that as time goes on ratings will be easier and easier to get. You may be a 1520 team now but in a few months you'll be at 1600 or higher. Early in the season lots of bad/poorly geared players get knocked into the 1400s. They will move up past 1500 as ratings settle down and they start fighting equivalently bad/undergeared players. S4 gear WILL be availible to a majority of players. People under 1500 that fail@arena inherently boost their own rating the next week by purchasing another charter.