For a non grinding pvp experience, the closest thing you'll find are fps games
One place you might could go look for an mmorpg is, hrm, what was the link,
www.mmorpg.com perhaps?
They had alot of mmo's listed, with short blurbs and user ratings. Last time I actually went to the page they had quite a few listed. Alot of them were free to play/micro transaction types (with alot of those being the grindy types) but perhaps there is something listed there you'll like.
I played one I found there for awhile, called Atlantica Online. I don't think it fits your requirements, but I enjoyed it while I played it.
It was free to play. Graphics reminded me a little of Guild Wars, so machine requirements weren't very high. Combat was actually turn based. You started off with 1 character, but recruited more over the course of your play. By level 50, you'd have a total party size of 9 (but you could have some characters in reserve too).
I think max level cap was 110, but I only made it up to level 67 or so. From 1-67 I had no level grinding whatsoever. Leveled up exclusively from questing. But, the quests got a bit boring - -kill x mobs, collect x items, travel here and back, go buy/make x items.
No open world pvp that I ever saw. Mostly pvp was in tournaments, that went on 24/7. Used some sort of match making system. Only problem with it was there was like a 10 level range spread for it. You could be going up against someone much higher level than you, and you'd lose unless they really just sucked (or were on auto battle).
Yeah, ok, probably not what you're looking for. But, even though I don't play the game at the moment, I don't really miss a chance at throwing out plugs for it. It was definately the best of the free mmo's I've ever played (although I'm sure you'll realize thats not saying much)