Yoshi kind of touched on this a bit, he has said he is reluctant to make characters more powerful based on time played, aside from basic leveling. He said that a certain group, those that don't even play the game, won't think it is fair if they start 3 months from now, and us that have payed and supported this game will have more powerful level 50's then the new level 50's, basically he looks at it as not rewarding long term players, bur instead punishing new players to the game. I think it is an ass backwards way to look at things personally, but I doubt we will ever get much of an answer because in the same interview they joked about players thinking "they know best" and that they have their reasons why they do the things they do, and many of those reasons can't be shared with the players.