It was previously mentioned that the new badge items for Blizzard's World of Warcraft were supposed to reflect the theme for the blood elves. However, several players on the WoW forums noted that the overall design of the items don't follow in the actual gold and red color design that the race favors.

In contrast to the supposed theme advertised by Blizzard, most of the new gear still retain the look of the Zul'Aman badge items which were aimed primarily for trolls. Fortunately, Blizzard Poster Drysc was there to give a rather lengthy explanation regarding this:

Contrary to popular belief designing a new item set does take a while. We usually use color shifts on the same designs to save time, the exception to that would be the arena sets where we want the items to specifically match the PvE counterparts. The choice to color shift is usually when an item isn't something that would benefit from having a unique model, usually a leveling item. In the case of the badge rewards I can see the reasoning to use color shifts for the level of investment taken to acquire them. Is buying an item with badges the same as clearing Black Temple? No, no not really. So, it isn't so horrible if a shift is used.

Drysc also mentioned that the entirety of the art department has shifted its focus on the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Therefore, it wasn't that surprising to find mere color shifts as the biggest difference between the newly released badge items.

The good news is that Blizzard promised that the next expansion will see far better quality in terms of the environments, textures and models. Hopefully, the developers will pull through with this statement and see better quality items in future updates of the game.