Ooh... new patch notes! ... Wait...

[MirielleLavandre]

While it is quite true that Yoshi said endgame gear would "not be replaced promptly at level 51 by any means" (via Massively article) - I think it is interesting that he chose lvl 51 in his answer. That made the fear of obsolete gear coming just as we start the expansion go away, but I'm willing to bet that the expansion will have many new armor sets, especially for those people who are new and just level right through 50-60 the same way we leveled from 40-50 // without stopping to "gear up". I'd wager that most of us didn't even care much what gear we had while leveling since it can be done so quickly (assuming we had level appropriate gear mixed with some dungeon drops). For those new players, it will be one continuous journey to 60 and I think the dungeon drops will reflect that.

I honestly believe that i130-135 won't last until level 60. At the most, I'd say level 55. After all, who wants to wear the same old gear for 10 levels. I'm not sure how long it will take to get from 50-60, but I do remember how in FFXI level 63 or so was actually HALF WAY or so to the cap of 75 (when 75 was cap). I know FF14 doesn't use that kind of xp curve, but with the expansion --- who knows. Perhaps I'm an anomaly (even though I should have NIN @i120 and WHM @ i130 by expansion release), but I'd willingly give those up for some nice looking, fun new armor designs no matter the ilvl since, again, when did we ever care about ilvl while leveling...

[AreeyaJaidee]

They wont lvl 1 to 60 very quickly with Steps locking them out of higher exp/hr thresholds.

[Zumi]

I honestly believe that i130-135 won't last until level 60. At the most, I'd say level 55. After all, who wants to wear the same old gear for 10 levels.

Because its leveling and probably fates or dungeons most people won't even bother to replace their i130 gear and just level up not get anything get to cap then start replacing gear.