Eh... I've always thought of iLvl as an additional means of progression as rather dull (and somewhat convoluted) personally. If you need to stretch progression out further, just let items fall where they may and extend normal levels (or add alternative ways to boost stats). If you want to go with an official system of item levels, then make skills unlock via quests and get rid of the standard leveling bit entirely. I'm not a huge fan of the latter, but eh; it would keep things somewhat sensible...

Quote Originally Posted by Aicasia View Post
ilvl has always and will always exist as long as there are stats on gear of any kind. It hasn't always been visible, but it has always been present. Even if you couldn't see it, and they added new fun and exciting stats to gear, each piece of equipment would still have an item level dictating how it is budgeted.
If you mean an intrinsically-defined (though possibly hidden) iLvl, that hasn't always been the case, nor does it need to be.
Items can have stats specifically associated with them on a one-by-one basis; you don't need to have them divied up into defined tiers which all balance to an exact standard within.