Quote Originally Posted by Felis View Post
That people can get good gear outside of raid
Like everytime at the start of an odd numbered patch
Not quite.

What you got in previous cases was raid exclusive gear upgrade items becoming available from other avenues (i.e. Hunts and 24 man content). So non raiders only got upgraded tome gear. In 3.1, you now get the above plus a new set of gear which depending on luck can be better than both Gordian and Esoterics, available through relatively less effort.