Are there any plans to look at PVP before "COH: Freedom" launches?

I will say it again the best thing the Devs could do is make an AE style of tool the players could use for PvP creation.

Then the players could build maps, create game play and balance powers.

In almost every type of 1st person shooter they have an SDK kit that is free and can be used to edit and do exactly what I am talking about. If they did this then the players would create popular maps, power balances and game play changes that would be the most FUN.

PvP in this type of a game is not skill related as in a fast twitch FPS game. It is auto hit and all you need is a target. Then after you work the numbers the auto hit portion is sorted and defense and resistance and other buffs/debuffs sorted.

If you can click it and you are in range you have attacked it.

But the game play could be altered - Flags are Temp Powers on a timer. If you die they drop awaiting the next click for x seconds until they return to spawn.

Escort mission we already have! But they could be built into PvP quite easily.

I know I once played in a Dustbowl league in Half Life. We could recreate this mapstyle very easily. Stalkers are the Spy archtype. Tanks are the large gunners, defenders - medics, Blasters - soldiers, Master Minds - engineers.

I am extremely disappointed that nothing has been attempted other than a free for all play in PvP.

Not really, it answers the question posed in the thread title exactly. If the question was 'are there any plans to look at pvp in the foreseeable future?' then you might have (haha yeah right!) gotten a different answer. But since the question asked about before CoH Freedom the answer is quite straightforward.

I'm not a PVPer but I do wish this system would just get rolled back to pre-Issue 13, when it was imperfect but at least, supposedly, fun. I have empathy for Z's position on this because he isn't the person making the decisions (and empathy for the person who has to make the decision, because they don't have infinite money).

However, I will say this: if the reason PVP was never fixed/rolled back/completed was because it was assumed not enough people use it to make it worth the cost, consider that PVP is a waving red flag for people who fear that Paragon Studios is willing to break a system and leave it that way forever. When I look at the incarnate system and their wait-death-grind-repeat nature, PVP is a reference point on just how far the developers are willing to push on a system that dismantles what made the original game experience attractive.

I think one of the major things they need to decide is how they want to earn income from PvP - like would they want it to generate subs, or would they want it to create sales at the Paragon Market?
If they want it to generate subs, then that wouldn't meed so much tweaking of the system - but if they want it so that free players can compete by buying stuff form the store, then that might need more work on the system.