What about this? Tomestone gear set to randomly drop from an instance, and if you get one you can't use, trade it in for a different one so long as it is 0% soulbound and of the same type (body for body, feet for feet). Considering that raid gear is truly the best, this would allow everyone else to gear up in good time without excuse.

The glaring problem here is that everyone would be geared up within a day and the added content would be null and dated on release.