Ilvl is just to ease up on how people will ask for what gear you may need to do x raid, dungeon ect. Before wow introduced ilvl people would say you need to have x gear to do this raid as minimum. Gear checks were just more complext but they darn exsisted in every game, you couldnt do black wings lair before molten core back in the day for example, you were expected to get gear to move to the next tier.

Examples now is how people just hit 50 and believe they can smack down AK with their lvl 44 wep ,af1 and crappy jewelry, ignoring wanderers palace completely which would get them better gear and even weapons to east the transition to ak. Ilvl makes things easier to identify. im glad they are going in the same route as wow having ilvl checks to go in dungeons to deter those who think they can tackle a challange with crappy gear and just be a crutch for the rest of the group