Thing is, this is not a dedicated PvP game. This is not even masquerading as a PvP game- it's just got PvP tacked on much like Chocobo Racing or that Fishing Cruise. Something to do when you can't think of something ELSE to do.
They put some resources into it because hey, some people like PvP, but certainly not enough of the population to dedicate the time to implementing a ladder system. If it did, they would. They chose the "lazy" option of not allowing groups because it was a solution that could be done in the amount of time they budgeted for this.
At the end of the day, if your friends uninstalled the entire game that was entirely hinged on whether a new PvP mode was going to be good or not, I mean, there are better PvP games to play.
I would love to see the actual statistics of how many people actually play PvP for fun, and not for leveling or getting certain glamours. I can't imagine it's that significant, or again they would put more into it.
