Oh and btw we already had a system to show "character evolution past the level cap" and that was called the "Merit System".
Which was a fantastic and perfectly coherent idea which, if anything, hasn't been expanded enough yet.

This item level crap copy/pasted from other games with COMPLETELY different phylosophies and models has NOTHING to do with stuff like that.
Merits were a great idea to offer character progression and evolution beyond the cap, this item level thing is just crap.