I just don't get it.

[Judah_Brandt]

Well, all of that gear you are referencing was at one point relevant. Some of it still is if you plan to level another class to do current content. Most of it exists as a way for players who do content casually to be able to have multiple options in which to gear their character in order to do said content. Also that high end gear that they make available is to ease the most difficult content, as everything else is relatively easy if you put forth any effort.

Go ahead and try the Extreme Primals or Savage content with minimum ilvl sync on, and then you'll start to see how things have functioned in the past. It makes sense in terms of scope, player skill can only supplement high end gear to such an extent. The only way to create difficulty is to tune things beyond our capabilities at the time of their release and provide a way for us to work at becoming strong enough to challenge them.

Simply put, every MMO is like this, was like this, and will likely continue to be like this. It's a functional system, and the reason it comes across as whining is because there are no alternatives that make sense for what this game or many others offer.

And there are stat optimizations, if you bother to look into them. Itemization for PvP, mixing and matching end game gear to maximize DPS in correlation with things like Skill Speed. Albeit in 1.0 there were secondary functions on certain things, such as the Dragoon's Gae Bolg increasing the damage from jumps. That sort of itemization is enjoyable, but don't get yourself caught up in it because it seems more complex than it really is. The best weapon will still be the best weapon, and all alternatives do is burden the community with arguments over optimization.