Why is "It's something to do" apparently a valid defense?

[Alahra]

If that is the case, why is there so much resistance when BiS items are made for activities that don't involve raiding?

Just the suspicion of gear that is BiS and not in a raid has raiders up in arms and claiming that raid groups will discriminate more and make things "mandatory", I find it far harder to convince them of that statement.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, given context.

But my point was that, even if there is an i220 weapon available from tomestones in February, the i210 weapon can still be relevant for a chunk of the population if previous trends of that weapon not being available without raiding resume. Even if the weapon can be gotten without raiding, personally I would focus on gear items before the weapon in that case, since I'd know I would still be getting the relic during the new raid tier and prefer to spend my tomestones efficiently (especially since I try to gear three jobs with tomestone gear each patch).

Frankly, I don't particularly care if raiders get upset that non-raiders can eventually have gear that is top item level. The acquisition of top gear for non-raiders is already delayed by several months, and my honest impression is that hardcore raiders that actually get upset about that are in a very small (but vocal) minority.