I think you should consider adding yellow/gold items that are rare drops. When an aetherial item would drop you could have a 2% chance to get a "rare". The system you have right now works, but there is a 0% chance that a player might stumble upon something truly special. This "rare" gear should be scaled up substantially.

At this point players have to race to level 50 in order to get any fancy gear. And you could add "rare" gear for lvl 50's that would fit between blue gear and purple gear.