Not every game needs to be an esport. Bannerlord in general seems to have gone down a very weird path with multiplayer. On release we get TDM, siege, commander battle, and skirmish. TDM and siege were in warband and definitely had their player bases but where are the battle players supposed to go? Skirmish? Skirmish isn't worth queuing solo. I play skirmish exclusively with a full 6 stack team and it gets boring quick. 90% of the time we hit full pub teams that stand absolutely no chance against a coordinated team and we 3-0 them. The best feeling is loading into a round and seeing a clan on the other team because then at least you have to sit up in your chair. Then you realize you've gotten A**erai for the 50th time that day and feel like necking yourself. Then you realize again that there's no way to specifically queue against another clan so you just hope you'll run into them again.
What is the holdup? Did the beta testers tell the devs they didn't want battle they wanted skirmish instead? Do the devs think they need these incredibly intricate maps to be made for battle? I can't tell you how many hours I sat on warband battle servers that just played random_plains_large or something close to it.
I hope to god that skirmish doesn't become the defacto competitive mode for bannerlord.