Quote Originally Posted by Ferth View Post
This is a phenomenon called Power Creep. WoW first became aware of it as a developer during their third expansion
Nope, the first expansion where level 61 greens obsoleted level 60 purples was where the rot started.

SE managed to avoid it for a long time in FFXI, seems they forgot the lessons of that game, I do agree with the OP that on release the item level was already way out of wack; end-game stuff was far too powerful in comparison to level-cap pre-raid gear, it's going to come back to haunt them down the road.