It appears the az BFA gear still works outside of instances and pvp. However, if you remove it, sometimes you can't put it back on. If you want to be a Twink for duels & wpvp, don't remove your gear or you're done lol. 1 of my 110s can put the BFA gear back on, and the other can't. Why? I have no idea...
And my artifact weapon (truthguard) is getting use of it's extra ability now Eye of Tyr. Every once in a while it procs and I have access to it. It shows I have 1/1 looking at the artifact. Might be a glitch because my lock and mage didn't get this.