Except for many years 75 was the cap, through RotZ, CoP, ToAU, and WotG, a long period of horizontal progression, then they released Abyssea, we went to level 99, and during that time it was vertical for a short time, with only Abyssea/VW/WoE for gear till 99 really, then it went back to horizontal. Really, if you look at the history of the game, the game has been horizontal far more often than it has ever been vertical.

Saying that we didn't use underleveled gear doesn't say much, once you leveled to 75 the gear was horizontal for a long time, same with 99, as I said, short bursts of vertical, but when we hit 99 we had a large selection of gear to pick from, some better than others, yes, but not so much better that only it matters. At the point the game is getting to now, 1 weapon is vastly better than everything else with no real comparison between the two in damage, for instance, Oats and Rigors have an extremely large gap, far larger than, say, Relic H2H & Brawny. That kind of imbalance is new, and bad for the game.