The issue is with the Clock Tower JP. If the player wins the tower, they then need to loot the chest and use the door to get back to the starting line. The problem is that because of the current timer, it is impossible to win a round and immediately enter the next one. No matter how fast I loot the chest and exit the winner’s area I have to miss the next round, creating 1.5 minutes of downtime for every 1.5 minutes of play time (even when I win). I think that this is a bug.
EDIT: One simple way to fix this problem is to make the timer about 5 seconds longer, giving the winners enough time to use the exit door.
Anet likely didn’t want to remove the armor stats entirely because…well,
we’ve all seen what happens in games where there’s no disadvantage to taking your pants off.