I just don't get it.

[X-ill47]

This is vertical progression for you. Item level is a thing. And I really can't remember MMO with vertical progression (btw Diablo 2 is NOT a MMO, it's Action/RPG with a strong multiplayer) that doesn't work this way. Content itself is not predictable, only rewards. Raids and dungeones are not copy-paste of each other, they are different. Next tier of DotH gear is going to require in some way current tier of DotH gear so I assume that your red scripts are not going to go nowhere (and new DotH will not require red scripts). Also, current DotH gear was released in July 2015 iirc, so it's defenitly time to give people an upgrade.

It's not really a bad game design. New gear is a bait for people to look at newest content. Some way of "outdating" old content is needed to change tune of regular playing. Regular playing is constructed in a way that you can acquire some stuff via grinding, but generally everything "best" is locked out for both purposes of eliminating real grinding and keeping people playing. Again, gear progression IS predictible, but the tune is not. And if the tune is bad, people are complaining and leaving. And if it's fun, people are playing.

BTW, you're saying that we're predicting all this stuff while we're ceartanly not always. The only thing I can "predict" (because developers didn't say it anywhere) is that we will end 3.x series gear progression with ilvl270 gear and ilvl 275 weapons, and that this ilvl will be available only for raiders in 3.4 and for nearly everyone later. I can't predict how next raids will look (except, of course 3.3 24-man raid, because they showed us pictures of it). And, well, that's not the only thing to do in this game. It may sound rather strange maybe but I like to do stuff in Gold Saucer. I LOVE to do story side-quests (still have to do some). Sometimes I feel like doing low-lvl content and then I level new class. Sometimes I feel like I would like to do hard content with group and then I start learning party for latest EX primal I still need to beat (not for the weapon and even for a bird, but for a fight itself).

You are not required to get latest gear if you feel obligated because of it's existance. Try to do content for itself, there can be no better bait than this.