There should be a system simalar to gear swapping for this reason..

without gear swapping ALOT of the equipment in this game is useless, and everytime new content is released more and more equipment will become useless.. and because of this people will allways just do the content that drops the best equipment and nothing else.

with gear swaps people will do content that drops gear that would otherwise be outclassed and would only be usefull in a gear swap.

like others have stated the materia system should be able to provide somekind of solution.

and btw, if someone is a douche it isnt because of gear swaps lol!!

gear swapping was one of the best aspects of FFXI endgame. it was a system in its self.