So after reading all the reviews of Stronghold, I have come to this conclusion. There is a holy trinity to PvP for GW2 and it is as follows: Conquest, Deathmatch, Stronghold.
While I understand that Anet’s stance has been to put them in the same queue, they all need their own queue and here is the basic reason why: They all have different time commitments. Everyone knows that when they commit to conquest they are committing to about 20 minutes of play time. 3-4 min of queue time (on a good day) 1 min of prep, 15 minutes of play. Many reviews of stronghold have requested 20 minutes of play time (25 – 30 min total depending on queue time). Deathmatch has been set to be 8 minutes so that’s about 13 minutes total. If Anet decides to put all these modes in one queue then as a player you don’t know if your commitment is 15 minutes or 30 minutes depending on queue length and map time.
For casuals, this is key because now I know if I am going to be able to do a couple games at (40 min) or 1 game at (30 min) if I have about an hour of play time.
To talk about the modes themselves, what I have seen is that people sway their opinions based on the pace of combat. In deathmatch, the combat is just about constant because your goal is direct player combat. Conquest and Stronghold have slower paces due to the fact that the objectives may or may not require your opponent to counter them. You can grab supply, a hero, or cap a point without running into a player. I think different queues will help people move to the pace of combat that they enjoy.
Lastly, I understand the lack of maps for Deathmatch and Stronghold. However I believe that based on the Festival content, you have maps that can be tweaked for Deathmatch at least. Old content that is reused for a new purpose is still new content without significant development time. (Dragonball/Snowball arenas). For Deathmatch I think you just need to look at preventing spawn camping and more use of LOS terrain so that using your surroundings and your skills is key to winning a match.
Anet has the tools, the maps, and the basis for building good content without large development times. Use them!