Cabalwars consist of 5% shitty ganks, 15% raiding empty cabals, 40% twiddling your thumbs and 40% of listening to your enemies telling you how you should behave because you are in cabal X.
Granted, common PK also shares a lot of the shittiness, but at least you're not required to do things by an arbitrary RP device instead of deciding who to kill based on your own role.
Side note on Herald: it's not for gear hoarders, it's for socializers. That gear hoarders tend to flock there is an unfortunate consequence of Herald powers. Saying Herald is for gear hoarders is like saying Empire is for Russians. Please someone roll a cool goblin and make Herald great again.