I don't know why some people are so upset about duels.
Duels are no renown farming, it's a honorable fight to decide who is the better player once and for all!
Some duellists doesn't even kill each other on the (in-)official duell spots. If the healthpoint difference was to big, there was a clear winner even without the kill (enemies life spared = even more honor

). But sometimes i just watched the duels (as a lot of the players there).
The duell events (on the german server i played) were over, when mythic introduced the LotD soulweapon crap.
I remember short after the first dok came back from the desert with his new "shiny" wooden swords, there was no real duelling anymore.
I think it's a false conclusion, that players that want to duell from time to time hurt the mass-pvp. I think most of them are not interested in running around from spot a -> spot b in large warbands filled with random players.
I would never duell some random jerk, just because there is the possibility per /duell.
There were some rules, on the official duell spots and you can't count on that in random duels:
- no buff-pots
- no "special" items, just weapons and armor (e.g. no cloaks that remove debuffs, etc.)
- no buffs/skills from other players, only the own playerskill(s)