Another issue is that the VIT/STR split makes secondary stats more important on tank gear, compared to other jobs, because the primary stats are weighted lower. This, coupled with the fact that you can get both parry and/or accuracy on tank gear pieces, occasionally results in situations in which lower ilvl gear is stronger than higher ilvl gear.

You can't phase out STR mid-expansion, though, so I'm hoping that they're just waiting on 4.0 to rectify this.