Imagine that instead of having elite gear drop from the hardest raids that only hardcore players can manage, rare vanity gear drops instead.

Casual players and semi-hardcore players will still get a chance at all the end game gear and content that way, but SE can create really difficult raids for the hardcore players that give them vanity gear.

And by vanity gear i mean gear that you wear over whatever armor you have. Some high-demand examples may be:
  • angel wings
  • cute moogle wings
  • dresses
  • tuxedos
  • demon armor
  • magitek armor
  • Garlean judge armor
  • Goblin costume
  • Ixali costume
  • etc
They could either do it so you equip the gear and it is diplayed instead of your main gear, or create scrolls that let you enchant any item in the game to make it look like the corresponding scroll's gear. So you could you're favourite tri-materia'd haubergeon but make it look like garlean judge armor.

Could also add in little special things like if you wear and ixali costume they won't agro you. Or if you wear a Garlean judge armor random Garlean npc's will kneel when you walk past.

This would create a seriously strong incentive to do the challenging endgame content, while allowing all players to take part in the "game play."