so I got the platinum edition of guildwars, which included prophecies and eye of the north.
I already had the collectors trilogy from steam and wanted to play eye of the north.
I added the access key to my account, and it said it'd be unable to add the prophecies parts, because I already have them.
That's cool with me, I already have it, whatever.
So I add the access key, and guess what? there's no place for me to choose eye of the north. I've logged out of the client, closed it, reopened it, nothing.
I sent a ticket into ncsoft, but it's the weekend and I doubt they'll respond quickly.
Does anyone have any idea why it isn't there? does anyone know why I can't play my game I bought?

the wiki states that there are 50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills.
so I figure that they aren't grindable.

Unlocking them in PvP would be a grind fest, well, even in PvE, running around trying to find them all might be a grind.
if you created a PvP only character, I think that's where the grind comes in. But if you unlock them in PvE and enter a PvP arena, you should be okay.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Eye_of_the_north_skills
Check that out, hopefully it answers any questions you might have. I don't really know if I'm helping at all. I'm so sleep deprived it isn't funny.

The PvE only skills are obtainable only through quests for their respective factions:
Asura skills
Deldrimor skills
Ebon Vanguard skills
Norn skills
The skills grow in power only when you grind reputation with those factions (their attribute is the faction rank, 1-10)
Weclock spoke about 50 PvE only skills (the faction-dependable skills) and there is no way in hell you can obtain them with PvP only characters (or use in PvP in general, for that matter).
But for those remaining 100 (10 per profession) skills usable in PvP, it works the way you have described.