You know that I really appreciate the effort you guys are putting into making a good place for pvp in D3. But those rules are really disappointing.
I think you got the problem with WD totally wrong. WD is the new Wiz with these rules, better offensively but even worse defensively and in mobility. I'm not sure how much WDs had a saying in those rules (Keen was mentioned but looked suprised about some rules in his post too), but the restrictions are just too much.
WD is a very fragile class. It's just tough to realize it because right now you could combine all the few defensive/mobility skills a WD has in one build. Taking away spirit vessel or spirit walk in all fights alone will break the class, it just doesn't work without them. Taking away even more (hex/horrify, no shield, pets in some cases) will make them the laughing stock of d3cl.
It's not the defense that was the sole problem with WD - I'm pretty sure any class could easily take a WD out. It was the combination of a powerful offense with a wide variety of defensive and utility spells. Taking away only the latter will result in extremely dull and short fights.
Lets look at some match-ups:
vs. Monks
old rules: tough match-up because WD lacks the mobility to get away from monks and also the defense to not get 1-shot (2-shot with spirit vessel) by wave of light. It was a kill or get killed kind of duel.
new rules: no shield, no spirit walk or no spirit vessel. Monks stay the same. Duels were short and boring before, now they will last about 4s - the duration of serenity. 5-0 for monks.
Possible solution for the monk vs. wd match-up: ban wave of light and then balance the duel around a monk without wave of light. WDs will have to get some limits offensively too.
vs. DH
old rules: slightly in favor of WD or even match-up if the DH was playing with legacy nats and very good movement (check Mystical from the US). Why did the WD win? Mostly because of his dots (haunt and plague bats) while trying to stay alive with the combined use of spirit walk, vessel, horrify armor buff, pets and maybe even shield.
new rules: you take away more than 50% of the defensive skills and the possibility of a shield. DH stay the same. It will be ridiculously easy for a good DH to take down a WD with those changes.
possible solution: limit the WD to one dot (haunt or plague bats) and one of hex/horrify and one of pets/shield/jungle fortitude.
Okay I keep it at that for now. I don't see how those rules would be more fun or fair for most match-ups. Hopefully some experienced non-WD players can second how one-sided most fights vs. WD will be.
I think you have to make the restrictions to skills more balanced. Right now you take away mostly defensive skills. This will result in a lot of boring fights, worse than the early pvp days on PTR when everyone was dueling in pve gear, 1-shotting each other.