Variety is cool, but it dies as soon as someone discovers that something works best.
In case you never noticed, everything about MMOs is fleeting at best.
Top gear is cool until players get access to the next tier, dungeons are challenging until optimal ways to run them with the best possible effort/result coefficient are found (read: farm), rare stuff is rare until everyone and their cat has it.

There is nothing wrong with talent/stat/gear customization novelty factor lasting a short while before optimal builds are discovered. It still provides some freedom of choice, and with every balancing patch it starts anew. It's good, and it works - proven by WoW, at the very least, where you could alter gear stats, play around with sockets, skills, skill inscriptions and whatnot. It's just noticeably harder to balance, and SE doesn't seem to have the time/manpower to pull this off. Which is a pity.