(starting a new thread to not hijack Nate's announcement thread)
I have been debating this myself for a week or so now as i have a couple of glads getting to this point in the game, and I am not sure which I will do.
On one hand you stay out of Blood Gods, your win % will stay better which for a normal gladiator is important if you want to retire him quickly.
On the other hand, soon as your in Blood Gods even if your loosing your going to get some BGP's, now you wont have the ranking to get orange items but you will be able to pick up the BGP purple epics which will be nice to have (especially the weapons) for doing conquests and gauntlet runs to get orange armor.
So I think for a normal slave I'd do everything i could to stay out of Blood Gods if my plan is to retire the gladiator, for a HOL slave getting in there soon as possible would be better.... maybe.