While I still have misgivings towards horzonital progression, as it is more often just an illusion of choice, the devs do need to do something to combat gear stagnation. Take dungeon gear, for example. It's wholly worthless outside glamour since Alexander Normal offers better and its minimal ilvl entry requirement is only 200; esoterics get you that. If they want to keep vertical progression, they can't keep handing out gear left and right that renders other avenues pointless because people will just ignore that content. Even the Anima weapon suffers from this. Someone in one of my linkshells pointed out how the effort required compared to say, farming PotD or even running Nidhogg EX for a near equivalent weapon just doesn't compare properly. I mean, I'm all for multiple options for gear progression, but there just seems like a lack of balance to it sometimes. Stat or proc bonuses would at least feel different even if it didn't change the dynamic a whole lot.