Downstate as a single mechanic definitely upsets the largest portion of the games potential PvP audience.
Honestly Gw2’s iteration on it is very low quality which may be the issue but I don’t imagine it is necessary in PvP. With some tweaks to team interaction which I find severely lacking it could be removed without dominance of a burst meta.
The abolishment of the holy trinity seems like more of a PvE choice as opposed to PvP. Less queue times for instances by avoiding team role requirements. However when it comes to PvP the ability to reroll is generous and really given the current balance of the game PvP is already quite specific in what is viable. And part of that is just the nature of PvP.
Prot monks in Gw1 gave the game quite a bit of added depth. Gw2 it is mostly target the player with the least ability to defend themselves until they die. There is no class putting up defensive walls on allies to force a target switch. Those abilities are all selfish so going into a fight you know exactly where your opponents defensive resources are going to be allocated. That is A LOT of depth lost.