This complaint could easily be leveled at the UI as well as "required" or "optimal" rank gear.

I know not everyone appreciates references to FFXI but as one of the few MMOs where one character can play multiple jobs it's, I think, an applicable reference. But in FFXI when you changed jobs, the game remembered what you had on and, provided it was still in your inventory, auto equipped everything.

I made a post on the forum awhile ago, and also a blog post about an inventory system that could allow the storage of sets of gear for different classes that could autoequip when changing to specific classes. Granted it wouldn't accomodate the "playing a job to just mess around" example. But I still think it would be a nice feature that would ease class transitions and help alleviate inventory woes.

I think there are aspects of optimal ranks that are nice... I have a tendency to walk around in a cowl no matter what class I am currently playing.

But at the same time having to hit a certain achievement in order to equip something has an allure as well. And yeah part of the achievement is just earning the gear... But it's nice to be able to look forward to being X rank to wear Y item.