Head & Shoulder rep were two reps. Hodir was probably the worst, but you could buy relic of ulduar and skip it. I forget if you could buy rep with Aldor & Scryer, but I want to say yes.
This is akin to needing to have rep in order to access hardmodes in TBC. Not a friendly move, though we were used to the grind and we were able to get most of the way through questing & dungeons, unlike Golden Lotus which is soley dailies and is a clear means of gating access to VP.