Actually you are making some assumptions here. Do I think that there needs to be bigger gear carrots for savage, absolutely. Do I think we need to do away with normal mode? Nope. Normal mode is fine, the rewards for savage are not.
I have also said that there needs to be two progression paths for casual and HC players, I just have a problem with both paths ending at the same ilvl. The raiding path should yield the best ilvl gear.
I don't really make that assumption. My beef is with Yoshida and his team, not casual players. I never say stuff like "all casual players are lazy." When I speak in generalities like "I don't understand why you guys want raid equivalent gear without raiding" I am usually speaking about people participating in the thread.
If there was extra story in savage, there would be a casual outcry. I can already see the posts: "whats the point of normal!!11!11 D:<"
My problem with Yoshida is he asked waaaay more of raiders with Alex savage without stepping up the rewards waaay more. He spat in the face of raiders, that's what it feels like. Who signed off on that terrible idea of not stepping up raiding rewards? Yoshida and his dev team.
My point was that I am not logging in to show off my epeen. I am not logging in at all. I don't think higher ilvl rewards will make me log in. I think the entire reward structure needs to be reworked from the top down. That starts with higher ilvl for raiding. I will keep saying this, how do you expect the rewards from casual and midcore content to be meaningful when the hardest content in the game yields meaningless rewards?
With what? Story? Nope can't have that.
With unique standout gear models? Nope, can't have that.
With a marginally higher ilvl than augmented gear? Nope, can't have that.
Right now, raiding rewards amount to bragging rights and that's it. We have already seen how well this design plays out. SCoB savage was hardly popular, no one did it. We are seeing the same pattern play out with Alex savage.
Also, a superior Ilvl in raid gear does have a purpose, it supposed to help you in the next raid tier or give you a head start in the next expansion.
The longevity problems is directly related to rewards. Content is short lived because there are very few compelling reasons to repeat content clears. When all you need to do is do a daily expert and one 24 man a week to stay current, why stay logged in any longer to do content?
I think one thing everyone agrees on is that the endgame, in it's current state, is a dumpster fire for all players regardless of skill level.