After so many years and mostely playing only in the winter times i notice its realy hard to catch up on gear level.
Its not realy fun to get 1 shotted in bg or any pvp game, the cost to upgrade u gear is to much if i want to go fully 197 i need to spend weeks or months.
Now im only takling about honor, qonceust is a complete diffrent story, i think it would be nice to get it a little faster so u can compete to other players.
Its bursty and 1shotted all the time is not fun to play.
Easiest way would be to start a new char as necrolord (most gear has vers on it) fill gaps with PvP gear. Slowly replace covenant gear.
197 gear makes no real difference this late into patch. Many folk are 220+ from vault and just rated gearing.
The issue is less the time it takes to gear. More the massive GAP in ilvl once you are.
Those early games as front line melee are really bad. Get your char ready for 9.1 - usually they prepatch giving everyone access to last seasons PvP gear.