The gear is is irrelevant but it still takes t5 clear to do t6 and to clear t5 most new players will do t1 through 4 spam to gear for it. I consider that relevant...simple to do and definitely low on the totem pole though. Likewise I see t9 clear being needed for t10, making doing SCoB still relevant. Furthermore new players will still need to do t5 if they haven't cleared. Unless of course SE removes the req, then yeah CoB becomes totally void from the equation.