After reading through this thread, I'm a bit surprised at the number of people who seem genuinely confused at the notion that there could even BE another way for an MMO to function. While my MMO experience is admittedly not broad, the one other game I played extensively (FFXI) had a single, stable level cap for roughly three quarters of its fourteen-year lifespan. It also had no ilvls (at least, not until the final expansion) - one piece of level 75 gear was typically as good as another.

Surely, then, 90% of the playerbase must have geared up in the top level 75 gear in the first couple months, and then quit the game for a decade? Of course not; FFXI had a healthy, thriving population for the great majority of its lifespan. FFXI presented a wide variety of options for players to gear up their level 75 jobs, and with each expansion and update added more gearing options. Different options had different stats, and in many cases a piece of level 75 gear that was useful in one situation would be less so in another, so players were encouraged to pick up several different kinds of gear for the same slot.

And it wasn't just level 75 that had that kind of variety. There were plenty of lower-level instances that yielded up equipment that was useful both at low levels AND a high levels - and these instances were NOT faceroll easy. Level 40 instances could be just as challenging or MORESO than a lot of level 75 instances. Leveling wasn't just a means to reach endgame where the REAL game began - in FFXI, the real game was the WHOLE game, leveling and all.

I'm far from one to say FFXI was a flawless game. Dear God, no, it was deeply flawed in so many ways. But it was definitely an MMO, it was definitely fun, and the way it did things was completely different from the way FFXIV does things. The formula used in FFXIV is not the only way, and given how ridiculously boring gear is in this game I'm convinced it can't be the best way.

That said, I think it's something we're just going to have to put up with. From its core, itemization in this game is tough to play around with. Every piece of gear, down to the tiniest accessory, comes packed with PRIMARY STAT. This means that lower-level gear can never last beyond its prescribed duration, no matter how interesting its sub-stats are. This, unfortunately, also means that finally getting a piece of gear from difficult content rarely provides any kind of thrill or sense of achievement, like finally getting that E-Body or Pimp Hat could in FFXI - gear that you could be confident would be useful for years to come, both as a trophy AND as usable gear.