They should at least have made the new gear i190 (vs. 180) in PVE so it wouldn't occupy this 'meh' middle ground it does now where by the time you get to the ranks to equip it you'll easily have gear at that iLvl or better. If it was i190, that would give more people an incentive to PVP and rank up... remember when we got a new stat last year to account for the fact morale was dead in PVE? A lot of gear went from 'lol glamour/look at this guy wearing PVP gear in PVE that's missing a secondary stat' to people wanting it. And then the higher level gear came out and demand went down. Esoteric cap sucks in relation to cost for equipping every single separate job and having this gear be 190 (just like people can now get farming Alexander) would have made it relevant. But NOPE! Can't wait to buy i180 to replace i180 or glamour under i190, I've actually held off on upgrading my caster hands from i170 to i180 so I don't feel like a total sucker when I move to the PVP ones. Someone could make the point that it's going to take forever to get the Myth v2 (i.e. Esoteric tome gear) so this will work as stand-ins- but not really when i190 is accessible through Alexander, which just about anyone who's level 60 can do (a few DF people I've seen excepted). I've only done it for a couple weeks and I have 3 i190 caster accessories and an i190 hat for when my Bard gets to lvl 60. Anyone who thinks Party Finder min requirements on average aren't going to climb upwards from i180 fast is deluding themselves.

For the rank 45+ people (you know, the ones who have sustained the PVP community all this time) I'm not quite sure what we got in terms of utility... and gear shouldn't already be relegated to glamour status upon release.