Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
Sorry, I should have specified ARR as prior to content added after its second-to-last major patch, rather than just "ARR". Foolish me. Even then, as you've just pointed out, they were separated in exactly 4 instances/tiers, and not the remaining 38, nor any crafted gear prior to the final tier.

Either way, I have to wonder what's so damn much stealthier about the purple chest-wrap or navy sleeveless tunic as compared to the brown chest-wrap or tan sleeveless tunic as to warrant the bloat in grind and inventory space for a piece used by the exact same role as categorized in content (merely Melee DPS) and with the exact same defensive value.
No, you still missed the point. The reason that Striking gear prior to 2.4 is equippable by Ninjas and provides both STR & DEX is that Ninja did not exist when the gear was released, and making a whole new set of gear for all of those sets for Ninja would have been a complete waste of development time. When 2.4 released, and with it Rogue & Ninja, Ninja got its own set as it was a melee (and thus couldn't use the ranged gear which had different stat priorities and defensive values at the time), but was dexterity-based for damage, and thus couldn't just use the standard melee DPS gear.