@malithar: that's a lot like saying "we know you busted your rear for this nocturnus set that has a base 5% to convert damage on top of the shadow set and -DT set and makes you a better paladin on the whole, but because it doesnt have ilvl stats, we've introduced fiat lux hard mode that you'll never get to do because nobody does enough campaign even with Trust NPCs and ilvl gear as it is. Please go bust your rear some more for a chance to get Nocturnus+1 at ilvl105 in a ilvl119+ battlefield so you can toss your old nocturnus stuff and keep this nocturnus stuff because we didn't have the foresight to make your actual stats compensate."

Replace nocturnus and fiat lux with practically any "butterfly" piece in the game and its acquisition method and you have the current situation. We have every right to be upset. Our gear didn't suddenly become crap overnight. It took stat vomit to make it suck overnight, and nothing else. Any given page of this thread will attest that none of the adoulin gear has any "butterfly" capabilities, just what we should already have at our level.

Yes, I get that gear gets replaced. Yes, I get that every expansion does its job to replace it. But if you as a company come to me and say "we'd really like it if you paid us 12.95 a month and we'd also really like it if you'd pay anywhere from 9.99 to 29.99 for this upcoming expansion we're gonna do which is a skeleton of what it will eventually be as we continue to work on it. That's cool, right?" Then by god, you'd better incentivize me continuing to fork over my dollar bills, because I didn't just bust my rear in the last expansion for ALL my gear to be pointless.

Take a look at relic (NOT reforged relic! JUST RELIC!) Relic was released in, what, Zilart or Promathia? I can still remember when NOBODY had assassin's armlets; you had to be part of a hardcore LS that did dynamis (and not many did!) AND have enough "points" to be able to lot it, AND pray to Altana it dropped. But that didn't make your other gear worthless. Lets use BST as an example:
I spent a week killing Dragonscaled Bugaal Ja for beast bazubands. A week. For the ONLY gloves that, at the time, affected pets. THE ONLY GLOVES.
I spent a month getting all the Monster gear in Dynamis so my BST could call pets and Reward them and not be terrible at it.
I spent a week getting all my BST AF for Charm and Tame and Killer Traits and all that jazz.
I spent another month getting through ASA, AMK, and ACP so I could have -10DT and Haste for my pet and have a reduced Call Beast timer and some pet double attack.
I spent a month getting all my Ferine gear to +2 so that I could have better stout servant, spur, reward, some more pet stats for ear/back/neck, etc.
I spent another month getting the oneiros cappa and moepapa stone and Armada Sollerets augmented (since they're the only boots).
I spent another month getting pet -PDT and +MDB axes in trial of the magians.
So 5 months and 2 weeks at 12.95 a month and you would now like me to grind until my fingers bleed for reforged gear and a 119 axe that effectively doesn't do anything WHILE also telling me that ALL my other gear would make me get 1-shotted.

"butterfly pieces" my foot. You're absolutely right in that I believe I deserve to be able to use what I've worked for. No other expansion eradicated the necessity of any of my other pieces that I've worked for. Not one. To say that I didn't work hard enough for it is arrogant beyond reproach in the first place.