It continued through the patches, and is why the game swelled it's subscription count, and what kept people interested and playing. It can be described as the following:

1) Easy Content as a sort of Long term Tutorial (the MSQ and Story dungeons)

2) Content that is challenging but completable for the vast majority of players, though they might need some help. Most equipment can be found here (Relics, Hard Primals -Remember when they were actually hard? And gave gear relevant to progression?-)

3) Very challenging content, that most players will not complete before nerfs. However the story and gear that can only be found here makes people keep trying.

3.0 and 3.1 seem convinced to overturn that. The best gear, all the story, everything is moving towards the WoW model. Which is the following:

1) Faceroll easy content that gets you all the story, gear, etc.

2) Facemeltingly hard content that only a few can beat, which gives you inferior gear and bragging rights.