@effot Almost everything you said was incorrect.
@CommunistCactus some of your info was wrong as well
PvP Changes past 1.9:
1.9.2: Adds toughness and armor piercing
1.10: Rods pulling in players now becomes a vanilla mechanic (not 100% sure)
1.11: Fixes the saturation system so that it heals 65% of what it did previously, also makes shields block 100% of damage in a 120 degree radius in the front
Somewhere between 1.10 and 1.12: Dramatic hit detection improvement
As for changes in the healing system, doing a consistent test where you take a 23 block fall with 1.5 hunger bars lost to drain to half a heart, you'll find that 1.8 takes 77 seconds to heal with just standard food. In 1.12 it takes 57 seconds with carrots, 46 seconds with cooked rabbit, 27 seconds with steak, and 23 seconds with golden carrots. Golden apples remain pretty OP, taking about 8 seconds to bring you back to full health. But, healing potions will do the same thing in 5.2 seconds so it's not that legitimate of a complaint.
Verdict: 1.12 fixes the healing system. With the next thing, we could make the argument that 1.8 has the problem worse than 1.12.
Also, 1.12 DPS exceeds 1.8 in the majority of scenarios. This ranges from 0.93x for a no-crit iron armor / iron sword match all the way to 3.17x for an all-crit PotPvP match. btw, the potpvp match would take 6.16 seconds in 1.12 so not even in PotPvP can the gapple bring you back quickly enough.
Verdict: 1.12 fights are shorter when 2 good players are playing, and the healing system doesn't affect fights
The shield changes in 1.11 is the change I'm least excited about, but it doesn't affect fights nearly to the degree you think. You can easily just crit around them and they won't be able to do much about it. If they back into a corner, drop lava.
Verdict: Easy to bypass
Also, why do 1.8 people never admit to 1.8's own problems - like never being able to catch people that run away? In 1.8 you have two things to catch runners - speed 2 potions, which allow you to land one single hit roughly every 8-10 seconds and flame bows, which become harder to use with every missed hit and can easily be extinguished. Not very good. In 1.12, you gain so much - slowness arrows, levitation arrows, dramatically improved bows, tridents in 1.14, rods that pull people in, and the offhand allows you to do more things at once.
That's something that 1.12 definitely improves, but you never bring that up
And hit detection in 1.12 is 10 times better than 1.8, but that's never brought up because it harms your argument.
And most importantly, you guys seem to forget all the good stuff that doesn't directly affect PvP, but still provides an interesting addition. Elytra is always cool, and I've done some sky based bow fights. They're actually a ton of fun, and definitely one that takes a lot of skill. Magma blocks were also a sneaky addition in 1.10, which is basically a cactus that can be placed anywhere. They can be used as an interesting combo starter if you know how to make proper use of them. Also, chorus fruit can mix up fights a bit when you're struggling to win one. Finally, while it's a bit of a cheap move it's hilarious to blow people up with ender crystals as they would've never seen it coming.