For what its worth, I've been casually PvPing in every expansion, and I've never gotten to that "even playing field". Grinding the honor for gear was more grindy than AP farming is. So grindy, in fact, that most BGs were bots. People would bot for a few weeks, then go roflstomp other people. And even among these people, there were always someone with a better trinket, racial, warforge proc, luckier with stat rolls etc. There's always something to make it uneven.

As a completely new player, you can buy AK15 instantly now, either through WQ farming or blood of sargeras. The catch-up mechanism gives you 2 more levels per week, so you should be AK25 within a month (if not sooner, if Blizzard tweaks the catch-up further). This will net you the first 20 or so traits almost immediately, then the next 15 should come naturally.

For someone that has been playing since launch, not getting AK would be a bad decision. Blizzard has always been open about them wanting to expand the trait system into even more traits, and it's natural that these would be opened into PvP as well. I expected better communication and a timeline for this change, though.