I hope esoteric gear is below the hard mode i level for alexander raids. You should not be able to log in one hour a day and be as people who plug 12 hour progression sessions to plow through alexander hard modes. People who just play to grind tome gear do not need the higher item level since they technically do not need it. Allow Esoteric gear to let you be of the gear item level required to do the first 25% of the initial raids in alexander but after that you need a few hard mode pieces in order to be able to overcome the gear gap in later raids.