It's funny, because I just came to read WoWInsider to cool off after a horrible EotS. We had no bases at all, but everyone rushed flag. When we couldn't cap the flag people just said "Let them win, faster honor" and trolled /bg until we were 4-capped.

Ugh.

Seriously, your comment is all people ever need to know about EotS. How people still don't understand this is beyond me.

Except random battlegrounds aren't premades and you can't guarantee any level of communication, individual player skill or ability to function as a team, so the 3v1 strategy is risky because it tends to result in a PUG spreading itself too thin. In a PUG it's somewhat safer to focus your team at two bases, deny the enemy the flag, and then go for targets of opportunity with whatever good players are present. That could be the flag or it could be other bases.

It's not clever, but it is robust - it doesn't put much pressure on your PUG to perform, and it allows a handful of good players to control the flow of the BG by capping the flag/assaulting a weak base while the enemy zergs your PUG defenders/etc.

This is why in PUG EotS I almost always go midfield. If the enemy sends forces to mid, I can prevent them getting the flag for upwards of a minute into the match, tying up their guys in the middle while our numerically superior forces have a better chance at the bases. If the enemy doesn't go mid, I get free control of the flag and am in a position to spot for targets of opportunity. I've seen this strategy work time and time again in PUGs; I've seen 3v1 successfully pulled off a mere handful of times - and each time was with a friendly team that dominated the enemy on every level anyway - and lead to many many failures as it degenerates into a 2v2 with the enemy controlling the flag because our team is too busy trying to cap another tower against evenly matched forces.

I've been in a match where we didn't cap a single flag (or even successfully harass their flag carriers much) but successfully defended three bases for the duration. It was longer than it could have been, but we won. That match was the perfect demonstration of the philosophy underlying three bases and I likewise explain the concept to everyone at the start of the match.

Also, I always say to go to DR if you're horde or FRR if you're ally. Why? Because the spawn point has a rock that reduces fall damage on one side, predisposing the players to go to that particular node (only really works for an uncoordinated PUG though). If I ask for group 2 to stick on MT and group 3 to head for FRR, I usually want group 2 to fully cap it (just in case they get wiped out/drawn off base, a sneaky rogue will have a more difficult time making it go neutral and forcing spawns further away) and group 3 to assist until its blue before heading across the bridge (so if they die on the bridge at least they don't spawn back up the rock).

Finally, I'm the guy that goes around capping 2-3 bases in AB even if we're losing by 500 and the enemy has about 100 to go. The concept of "just let them win" doesn't get through to me.