Is there a future?

[Arcon]

/sigh.....
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ram_Hauberk_Set
lots of pld had few pieces or even the full set if you had to deal with Tiamat and different stuff

Including me. But it doesn't qualify for several reasons:
a) It wasn't endgame. I started EXPing in campaign when no one invited PLDs to parties anymore (which was around Lv60), and I had the full set before I hit 75. It requires neither high level, nor high skills, nor good gear, nor strategy. It was mainly an EXP alternative.
b) It could be done solo, and required no group efforts. It was done by people on their own, whenever they had some time off from regular events, not as a LS. In fact, with competition you sometimes made less, because I remember waves dying too quickly and people not getting enough EXP.
c) It was deterministic (no randomized drops), you could calculate exactly how long it would take you to complete, and there was no way of making it faster or slower, which means you weren't motivated to put any effort in, other than keep hitting mobs in campaign. At some point you simply had enough points and could buy it.
d) That point was not very far away. Aside from the wait time for rankups, it took very little farming to get the necessary points for it. Like I said, I got it just from EXPing regularly when I got the chance.
e) That set for PLD was literally the only good thing about it, and only if you did care enough for some additional magic defense and enmity items. It was only ever useful for high end Paladins who had everything else capped. There was no motivation for anyone else to get their respective sets, as such a large part of the community was not interested in doing it regularly, and the ones that did didn't do so for the items.

To be honest WoE do have specific gears that are good. But the overall feel was just not great in comparison to all the others endgame from other expansion. When Voidwatch and Abyssea become the defacto gears, there is something clearly wrong with their game design...

I'm actually a bit embarrassed that I completely forgot about WoE. Although that fact alone hints at its significance. WoE did indeed have some situational nice gear, and especially expensive gear, but due to its setup and its lotting rules it was never popular to be done as a LS event, but instead it became a pickup event (sometimes involuntarily).