Ilvl does make a difference. When I got pld 50 just recently I went into AK with 2 blms from my ls and had all sorts of trouble holding hate (at least they were nice and dialed it back a bit and/or acknowledged they were going overboard). I dont remember what my ilvl was then but I was in a mix of gear from i55-70. It's also pretty hard to get a handle on the situation once things start running everywhere. If its an off mob after you've been tanking for a bit, it's just a matter of provoke > shield lob, but when everyone attacks everything right at the start and you're having to run around flashing and shield lobbing it's pretty frustrating.

BRDs and BLMs definitely need to use quelling strikes, and it'd probably be nice if they didnt pop all their dmg buffs as soon as you pull. They can start casting/shooting right away for all I care, but when they're going to use raging strikes, crit buffs, everything they have and not quelling right away before I've even had a chance to flash that's their fault.

Of course, I'm also of the very strong opinion there are dps out there (not all of them of course) who think that pulling hate makes them good. If you're only going to play one role, you probably dont know what it's like for the others, and the only way to judge yourself is 'my dps was so high even the tank couldnt keep hate!' until you actually play tank and understand the rotation and setup and the frustration of trying to keep hate off overeager dps specifically targetting the mobs you aren't targetting.