I really hate the "Skill can make up for gear" mindset some people have. Part of being good at your job is gearing up. If you can get better gear with a fairly minimum amount of effort and you don't then you're being inconsiderate to the rest of the people you're playing with. It's not hard to get stuff better than your AF. Run some easy WP a few times and gear up a little before going to AK. Do AK for a bit before doing HM primals. It's not that much to ask. I've never seen anyone give anyone any crap for not having full sets of HQ quadmelded ilvl 70 crafting gear or anything. It's jerks who go into HM titans with AF and level 40 rings and whatnot.

Just be considerate for your party by not wasting their time or forcing them to work harder because you didn't want to take a bit of time gearing up a little. Gear score is a good thing, because it at least works to enforce that a bit.