Do you play on a PvP server?

As everyone knows I'm a carebear it comes to no surprise that I'm playing on a "normal" server, not on a PvP server. I was chatting with a friend today, exchanging our experiences of patch 2.4, and his take was radically different from mine, because he is playing on a PvP server: He couldn't do a single daily quest for the Sunwell Offensive, because he kept getting killed before he could kill the mobs. And when he and his fully epic geared friends decided to do Magister's Terrace instead, they died 4 times before even reaching the instance. Fortunately he is a warlock, and they could summon inside. But groups who needed the summoning stone in front of the instance died a lot more often before they could actually start.

To me (carebear mode again) that doesn't sound a lot of fun. I tried a bit of open world PvP last weekend trying to take Halaa, but as there are twice as many Alliance than Horde on my server (according to Warcraftrealms), you're always the underdog if you do open world PvP as Horde there.

And it is not as if by playing on a normal server I couldn't do PvP. Duels, and the battlegrounds, and arenas, and open world PvP objectives are available to me. PvP on a normal server is a positive sum event, where everyone involved gains some honor points, victory marks, or arena points. The only difference is that I don't have to fear getting ganked if I don't want to. I am honestly surprised that so many people play on PvP servers and apparently prefer the danger of being ganked. It makes me wonder if the people on PvP servers are more hardcore, and playing more hours than the people on normal servers. If you are on limited available play time, getting a group together and all transported to the start of the instance is already hard enough without getting killed repeatedly on the way. And obviously players on PvP servers get less daily quests done and need more time to farm the same amount of gold. What is the attraction?

I'd be interested to hear whether you are playing on a PvP server or a normal server, and why. Was that a conscious decision, or something you regret? Have you moved from a PvP server to a normal one, or considered it? Or do you consider rerolling on a PvP server if you are currently on a normal one? What do you think is the attraction of a PvP server in World of Warcraft?