You are in essence saying that PvP is bad because players aren't meta-gaming enough.
This is 100% false.
In any MMO, leaving content to players and expecting them to meta-game does not work. In a theme-park MMO, it is the responsibility of devs to guide player behavior themselves, and invent mechanics to generate pvp. This would be achieved by making keeps valuable to take, by introducing hotspots in some way, etc...
In a sandbox MMO, this quality is naturally achieved because there is an economic advantage for players to pvp.
However there is NO development strategy that includes the ommision of clear incentives and instead relies on its players to metagame....because that basically means that game itself isn't good enough, and players have to psyche themselves out to make it fun.
Instead of blaming the players, blame SSG for making PvP worthless, for making a map that has no meaning, for not updating pvp loot in 5 years, and for making the only incentive an abstract one (renown) --and I say abstract because its no longer even a form of currency as it once was, it now has literally no use).
The idea of having arranged fights somewhere else on the map beyond GV or grams is not an idea that will produce consistent quality pvp. Even a mere daily resolution from both sides to leave GV and Grams and fight elsewhere is not an idea that will produce consisten quality pvp. Wherever you go, you know that the fight you just partook in has no meaning and gives you no advantage for winning, and no disadvantage for losing.
There's no getting around a pvp structure that sucks to begin with.