Return of Reckoning

I've picked this game up after years and I'm frankly having a blast leveling a fresh marauder especially with the double xp boost week but I get the feeling if I push through to Rank 40 with only a rr of 26 I'm going to have some gearing problems later once I start getting some pieces.

But I'm just having too much fun wrecking stuff on a PVE level. If I push through to rank 40 can I still get some decent wearable gear at 40 or should I just spam scenarios and follow the WB herd at tier 4 till later?

My Marauder is currently halfway to level 32.

The endgame is pvp, there is no exception. There are high tier pve instances with - depending on class - best-in-slot gear, but it's usually only an addition to pvp-earned gear.
People do pve in order to be stronger in pvp, pve itself is not the selling point.

With your low rr you will have a hard time to pvp in T4. When being 40, you can join open warbands and follow/hide in the zerg, where your bad gear doesn't matter.
Having you in a T4 scenario, where individual performance matters more, could be a bad experience.
To get at least to rr40, you could use -xp scroll, bought at warcamp quartermaster, to reduce xp gain.

Ah alright then.

Sounds like I'll just have to tone it down till my RR rank gets higher.

Still feel less brickish than the original client but then I may not have simply enjoyed playing a Chosen