We were told that a revamp of Factions is coming, but that could be years away, if ever. Could we get some coding in now that causes all faction gear to become un-wearable in Trammel or allow faction fighting to be across all facets? Even better would be both!
We are actively working on the first part of a series of updates to the Factions system. This first part will rework how faction scores and ranks are calculated. We're working towards putting an early version of a new system up on a public test server in the near future. More details will be made available in coming weeks.
The issue of joining factions just to get the artifacts and then never actually participating in Factions battles, is one issue we do wish to address. We are currently discussing the pros and cons of enabling Faction combat across all facets. We're also looking at other methods, including detection of faction "deserters" who join up and then never actually fight in PvP.
Right now very little has been decided; we're prototyping a new score and rank system that we want to make available on a test server. We want to see how well it accomplishes its goals and how well-received it is before moving forward.