i seen many good non donation players around, and i doubt that they donate to be good plus i never donated and i got plenty of gears, its all about having patience and find a way to get geared.
Now if you think about it the ladder is a way how these new players can gear up theirselves, selling the pvp tokens from 2nd-3rd places and every pvp token is like 300-400 each wich means you don't have to donate to be the shit in game, need to take any chance you can!