Quote Originally Posted by HungryHippo View Post
[...] when I know the gear I will obtain wont even give me any big benefit, unless I raid. See their point now?
Not exactly, because gear beyond the minimum exists to make things easier and faster. That's a general thing - a raider who successfully clears a raid certainly doesn't need any better gear from that raid, because he's just proven he can do it without. It only serves to clear the raid again, easier and faster. The deeper irony here is that the worse a player is, the better gear he would 'need' for any given content to compensate - hence, unsynced coil clear rates now are miles and bounds higher than when it was recent. If we were going by "need" and benefits, you'd have to give the suckiest players the best gear and the best players the worst gear. Now that's a huuugely popular idea, right?

That aside, progression, the feeling of getting stronger, is considered a positive thing in its own right by many. Cookie clicker works on a that principle - the plain desire to increase an arbitrary number, the cookie count in that case. It's a very minimalistic game, if it can even be called a game in the first place. But nevertheless, it got quite successful. And that's what the progression system tries to emulate.