I find it funny that people think this is an elitist thing. How about common courtesy to people who have progressed through the content in the order it was intended? By skipping the in between dungeons, and undergearing your character, you're wasting other player's time who have geared themselves up by either doing Wanderer's Palace and Arum Vale, leveling their GC rank high enough to get Lv50 weapons/equipment, or bought/had someone make them militia equipment. This progression is by design . Though, it is indeed possible to win AK with AF and a Lv43-45 weapon, doing so is a damn headache to other people properly equipped to take on the dungeon and carry you through it. This is not another player's job to do so and it perpetuates the disdain towards the Duty Finder even further. Sure, using the Duty Finder isn't exactly where you expect to find the best quality player, but not having a gear check for some dungeons graduates it to a point of, "Why bother?" completely.

I happen to be willing to use the duty finder during my FC event downtime to run an AK and do not at all mind being paired with players just making the gear check. It still says they've tried to gear their character. It may take 5-7minutes extra for the missing DPS. It really doesn't matter. All that matters is if it is beatable by your abilities, since already establishing that it made a gear check, and not because you are a lazy cancer player who wants to be included in the initiation dungeon to endgame early with no effort whatsoever to the latter dungeons. They are useful. They teach you different dungeon mechanics and give you gear to progress to the next dungeon. Be smart, enjoy the journey, and respect other people's time.