How [as a developer] can you possibly....

Q u o t e:
you took a pvp system that was designed (and mostly working) around the idea that a class's offenseive capability was balanced by it's defensive capability, and then made a blanket statement that EVERY class would henceforth have the SAME offensive capability (within 5%)

That "blanket statement" refered to sustained PvE damage (generally boss fights). PvP is much more about burst damage, crowd control and crowd control breaks than the mythical 5% rule.

If your thesis was correct (that balancing damage to within 5% caused PvP imbalance) then DKs and warriors should be about as effective as each other in Arenas. That isn't happening on Live, and I'd argue it has a lot to do with the way DKs deal damage (often magical and at range) and avoid damage (often through cooldowns). It doesn't have much to do with their sustained damage on bosses.

Q u o t e:
except that DKs are designed to be the class that can tank and dps with the same spec while warriors are designed to sacrifice that defense through talents in order to gain their offense (berserker stance penalty anyone?)

IMO, thats a little bit of a mis-characterization. DKs do not have a tanking tree the way warriors have a Protection tree. DKs do have to choose tanking talents to be effective tanks and they give up offensive potential to do so.

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP's post, because some of you have characterized it as DKs (and maybe Ret) don't have to pay enough in offensive ability for their defensive potential. That I think that I would agree with more (moreso when 3.0 shipped than with 3.09 and definitely 3.1).

Q u o t e:
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That "blanket statement" refered to sustained PvE damage (generally boss fights). PvP is much more about burst damage, crowd control and crowd control breaks than the mythical 5% rule.

If your thesis was correct (that balancing damage to within 5% caused PvP imbalance) then DKs and warriors should be about as effective as each other in Arenas. That isn't happening on Live, and I'd argue it has a lot to do with the way DKs deal damage (often magical and at range) and avoid damage (often through cooldowns). It doesn't have much to do with their sustained damage on bosses.
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And how exactly is this going to change at all with the new patch...

You can find the information in the patch notes and on these forums, but off the top of my head:

Unholy can't do massive damage with Icy Touch or Howling Blast anymore.
No DK will be able to avoid melee attacks or getting diseases on the target before their big strikes.
Blood Boil isn't an area snare any longer.
Ghouls aren't permanent.
DKs aren't coming back as ghouls.
Key defensive abilities have longer cooldowns.
AMS has a damage cap tied to health.
Gargoyle requires a full investment in the Unholy tree.
Rune of the Fallen Crusader can't do as big bursts.
There's a lot more.

Q u o t e:
GC,
Can us PVE'ers point you to this post and perhaps beg your understanding of exactly why so many of us hate arenas. Do you understand now?

You always say its terrible when PVE'ers post about how they want arena's removed from the game, and you say it isn't constructive. That's fine, but look above and tell me how arenas themselves, and you guys "balancing" the game around arena issues, haven't stripped so much in PVE.

DK's were SUPPOSED to be about defensive cooldowns (particularly with tanking)...but along comes the sponsored Blizzard WWE Cage Matches...and what have we now?

DK cooldowns also made them too good as tanks in PvE content. We don't make the changes in a vacuum. Sometimes the same change is good for both PvP and PvE. Sometimes we have to compensate one or the other. Most of the time when players are saying "It sucks to be nerfed for PvP reasons" what they are really saying is "It sucks to be nerfed." DKs were supposed to be (and still are TBH) about defensive cooldowns. They were not supposed to be about trivializing PvP or PvE content.

Saying "I don't like what PvP does to the game; it should be removed" to us is like saying "I don't like having Alliance in the game; it should just be Horde." Your comments would be more helpful if you tried to come up with ways in which a needed PvP change would not affect PvE or vice-versa.