Gear level, the final nail in the games coffin.

[makii]

I guess I'm so new to MMO's I'm not understanding... Just progressing in the game to level 46, the storyline quests alone have given me level 50 gear (evokers horn, etc.. Etc.)... fighting in fates and doing grand company leves (which is how I have killed time waiting to get into dungeons) have given me seals which give higher level gear than that, and doing the dungeons have given me the tomes to get even higher level gear than that... Not sure what the problem is?

The problem, my friend, is that most of the MMO-mentality today includes playing for two weeks and being in full engame gear so you can go around showing off your cool armour to everyone. When this isn't possible, it will be considered a grind.
It would be fun to see these people back in the old MMO days where stuff was actually hard to obtain.