possible oversight with the new ilvl system?

[Zhronne]

Item levels for character growth is a terrible idea in general. It would have been much better to just have added another merit category that would let you increase your character's powers dramatically, while also requiring lulz amounts of exp (or even special SoA "exp", if they want to keep all 99+ character progression within SoA, like they currently are doing with item levels.)

^ This! So much, so much, so much this.
iLevel is one of the worst ideas if not THE worst ideas coming into FFXI over the last 10 years. People haven't even started to grasp the full extent of damage this choice will do to the game over time.