Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Felessan]

This part is always backwards in MMOs. If you don't want to put effort into the game, you'll get hard mode because you will have weaker gear. And if playing hard mode is not putting effort into the game, then what is it?

Even within hardcore those who likes "farm months worth of gil to buy gear to make a progress" is a minority, the rest prefer actual complexity in organization, cooperation and quality of play of each member.
This is why for most part crafted gear is a little upgrade over drop/token items, and even those opportunities that existed in 2.0-2.1 were delayed/scaled down in 2.2-2.3 (we did not get crafted accessory in 2.2, only in 2.3, and even after we got it - it has 1 less stat, so you no longer can get hp *and* damage stats on par with top accessory that made crafted ilvl70 accessory so good) .

And making Novus have nothing to do with pushing efforts to the edge. Novus is not top weapon, HA is. Novus was introduced when the most dedicated already cleared T9, making all those efforts obsolete if you really pushing it for "the best gear". Novus is just an intermediate weapon where you can play with secondary stats, and as such it's out of the "top" territory and all those BiS talks. You can spent all those 10 mil for best combo, but it'll be mostly for your own joy and sense of acomplishment.
There is an explicit limit of how much of upgrade you can get for money and it intentionally kept low.