Sure it's a part of the game, thing is you'd think people have something better to do with their live's than gank lowbies who give them no HK for like hours... I mean, it's pretty sad when you think about it, even if you DO suck and cannot take your vendetta to Bg's because you get you *** kicked there, it's still pretty sad.
I do think barrens, as well as durotar, is a Horde controlled zone in which alliance cannot attack you unless you are flagged or attack first, if I'm wrong then the lvl ?? dwarf paladin i was running around with my alt making rude gestures at while questing in Ratchet must've been like really dumb or a very nice person xD
Playing in a somewhat new PvP server I haven't had much troubles with ganking, just beat off some suckers in Arathi Highlands who should get some skills, and was once ganked by 2 lame hunters who caught me resting after some hard mob grinding.
Oh, and once a lvl ?? rogue tried to attack me in Hillsbrad, had to sacc my voidwalker but my second fear managed to hit and sent her running a fair distance getting to Tarren Mill no problem, where the guards scared the unstealthed dumbass off the hard way ^_^