Personally, I think the realm numbers are inflated (or there are many many bots), and as such not as many actual people seeking pvp are queing bgs as one would hope. Last night (4:00 am PST (US Pacific), mid-afternoon server time) I queued for AV for a quick daily, and entered a bg with roughly 18 ally and 12 horde (horde being the obvious fewer to queue). At first I thought I was just unlucky and it was an overflow bg while a full AV took place, and after the AV was prematurely ended for not enough players (somehow horde won despite having 100 fewer reserves), I joined another. Same boat, 12 ally vs 11 horde. We won, and afterwards I did a /who Alterac Valley rather than queue again, and saw roughly 12 alliance in the bg, and only one up via the battlemaster. I checked the Information page on Warmane, and there were approximately 7,800 players online. I find it hard to believe that among nearly 8k players the realm would have a tough time garnishing a single AV, which is well known to be the quickest way for anyone to grind honor.

Inside the 12vs12 AV battleground, I additionally came across a few horde players I'm convinced were botting (melee mage and hunter chasing me almost into Balinda, lol, as a shadowpriest I should have been mowed down in the 100 yards we all ran on foot), though I already had a full ticket reporting other botters, evidencing my initial point.