Yes, Willy, from a technically explicit standpoint, "XP-off battlegrounds are battlegrounds for people who don't want to gain XP."​ While players may PvP in battlegrounds for any reason they wish, the vast majority of them do so to twinker, which was clearly the implicit intention behind the ability to turn off XP. I have no compunction over ejection of any player that has motives other than twinking in an XP-off BG, other than the 60-64 bracket. But even in that bracket, I stand by the implicit XP-off intentions.
Beyond what I suggested in this thread, all the midbrackets need leadership -- three or four people in any given bracket to invest time in the bracket to help build and manage the bracket. Guilds, information sources, the works. When it comes to the smaller brackets, the combination of higher standards and fewer players means that community takes precedence over technical features of the bracket. For most players, who you play with day in and day out makes a much larger difference than what gear and abilities you get to use. There doesn't need to be consensus in the community (for the most part), but there does need to be at least a sense of respect that hey, the "regulars" that show up on game nights are worth spending time with.
Specifically for 29s, I think that means one immediate thing: get over the fact that the 29 community is not the one we had from 2010, and move on so that 29s can make the most of the new opportunities of the bracket. Members want 29s to play like the PuGs they remember from 2010. That requires building back up to that, because the Shattering (in some ways) reset each bracket back to just before the no-XP patch landed.
One of the greatest ironies of the Shattering was the impact of the XP-off patch come full circle. For years, some twinks argued to get into our own battlegrounds. And when it happened, we finally got to see how many griefers truly played. Pruning them all out temporarily made many brackets go dormant, and killed a couple of brackets permanently. Then, twinks clamored for a merging of the battlegrounds to help twinking numbers. Once again, we got our wish, and here we are complaining about the newbies and griefers entering back into the bracket. If 29s want to get back on track, 29s will need to help new players and returning vets from before the XP-off patch to catch up all the ground 29s covered last year.
First and foremost, that means playing with them. It means playing alongside them. It means playing against them. It means that for PuGs, you don't sweat the FAPs, speed pots, hunters, or anything else. It means you make each player a part of your bracket and lead by example, and reserve organized actions for those who are truly, consistently hurting the bracket. 29s as a whole seem to spend too much time on preventing bad things from happening, when they would benefit much more by concentrating on making good things happen. Which of those two sounds more fun to you? If you don't think the bracket can be fun with the current state of hunters or any other condition, then you're better off not playing in 29s. The merging of the battlegrounds makes it significantly more difficult to have the same sense of community that twinkers had before the merge. That was the price of merging battlegrounds.
That's how 29s get things back on track -- start with individual player interest, and work your way up from there.
