skill is far more important than gear, it's of course connected but skill shines through in the end anyway.
i have a good example at my old server, they arranged some 5on5 in dire maul arena where there was a tournament with brackets etc and the top pve and pvp guilds were competing (this was pre-crossbg) from that server. back then, AQ wasnt released so the best pve guilds had the best gear avail from BWL while the pvp teams had a few marshals and one grand marshal i think. clearly, the bwl peeps were better geared (since this was before the buff of the epic pvp rewards) but still the pvp team won. Warders showed right there that skill is greater than gear but they wouldn't be able to do it naked either.
also i think those who spend most time playing a game should get rewarded the most in these type of tournaments, and since these "pve-whores" usually spend endless time planning and organizing and practising and so on they should be rewarded.
conclusion, i agree in some ways.. but skill shines through most of the time.
i think you'll be surprised. you're not a living nuclear missile even with the best gear. even if you're draped in tier 5, you can't do crap when a rogue and druid are cutting you at the same time unless you've got some skills and know how to play your class. it's funny when some mages jump into the middle of a melee fight and then whine about how they got 2 shotted.
on the other hand, it's pretty similar to most games anyway. the more time you put in, the more you win. the ones who have exceptional skill shine through without the gear. like link said, a hardcore pvp team will easily beat another team with the best pve gear thanks to better communication and co-ordination. the gear > skill argument comes mostly from world pvp 1v1 which isn't a good way to measure skill (again, if a player is ambushed by 2 others who get the first shot but still manages to come out on top, it's most likely skill and not gear) as the game isn't too balanced for 1v1. kinda like dota where certain heroes would wtfpwn other heroes in a 1v1 battle but in a proper 5v5 with good teams who know what they're doing, the situation could be entirely different.