Variance in player skill is hurting FFXIV's itemization design.

[Kerii]

Well, then you'd need to truncate the experience in that you'll have a comparatively smaller ilvl jump, due to the lack of options available at the outset. I can't imagine a 20ilvl jump being appealing after having larger jumps since HW.

The crafted gear is the same iLv as the current normal mode gear. That would just replace normal mode gear in the chain. At the start of the raid it would be Crafted -> Currency -> Raid. Then in the off patch would expand to Crafted -> Currency -> Full Raid gear -> Upgraded Currency -> Raid gear. Really the ilv jump is the exact same. You just give the crafted gear slightly better stats since they don't have to compete with the normal mode gear.