Unuseable Gear...

[RiversideGuy]

Ha, already ran into the "rank gotcha." One needs seals to rank up, BUT I had to grind out 25 guild leves to get to be able to do the 30 & 35 guild leves... even post 40! As for colors, I DO see Aetherial gear being pink (background of gear icon)... and it frequently is better than gear several ilvls higher. Not sure I've seen other colors... or are you referring to the thin vertical bars of color on one's character sheet next to each piece of gear (I wondered what those meant)?

[Niwashi]

or are you referring to the thin vertical bars of color on one's character sheet next to each piece of gear (I wondered what those meant)?

Those represent your gear's condition. (It's shown as an actual % number in the gear's tooltip, but those bars in your character sheet give you a quick at-a-glance view of all your gear at once.)