What is the point of the Zaishan challenges?

I don't get it. What do the Zaishan challenges and elite missions do? I'm not exactly sure what the point of playing them is other than to simply practice pvp.

thats exactly what it is, practice.

its also a way to test out individual skills with one build to see how dynamic your character can be, and the creativity of the user.

It said somewhere in the Factions manual that you will get rewards or items and the like, but I never saw any indication of a reward.

And you can get some faction out of it.