I preferred DAoC's method of horizontal progression, they had caps on how much you could boost each stat from gear, it was actually quite easy to cap 2-3 stats, but there was around 20-25 stats you had to balance on your character.

Putting together a template of gear to max out necessary stats took a bit of work, and some people would work really hard to get an "optimal" template built, but in the end no one was ever able to max out every stat they needed for their character.

So in essence, there was no BiS nonsense, or illusion of choice, nearly everyone had their own custom template for how they played. Only one class ever carried around a second set of gear for endgame, and that was to max out the hp of their pet when they summoned it.