Do you not think that these bugs are going live because there is a lack of data on how to replicate them? I am sure that very few people take the time to properly report bugs with video evidence along with the environment they were playing. I say this based off my experience in User Acceptance Testing and many end users have no idea what is needed for developers to properly fix an issue.

A lot of the bugs I'm talking about aren't the "this weird thing sometimes happens and I don't know why!" kinds of bugs but more like "this thing used to do this but now it does that every single time."

A good example of the kind of bug that came out of the PTR is Orisa being allowed to build ult charge while her ult is out.

There's also a good amount of bugs that can be replicated in PTR that are shown on /r/Overwatch and /r/Competitiveoverwatch that don't get fixed until live.

Cosmetics and your level are so irrelevant in a testing environment though. That argument that 'I don't play PTR coz I don't earn lootboxes' really doesn't hold water if you are concerned with the balance of the game.

I personally don't care about levels and cosmetics, but a lot of people do, so it may discourage some people to play on PTR when they could just play the main client and have virtually the same experience but with their c00l new Tracer skin they unboxed 2 days ago.

My point in making that point was to say that if Blizzard made the PTR keep your current level and stuff and allow it to be updated the PTR might see an increase in players.