There are three different ways to obtain equipment in FFXIV.
1. Obtaining items via difficult raids
2. Obtaining items through tokens that have weekly limitations
3. Obtaining items by spending a long period of time
—Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVI Digest

Is that right?

By choosing to grind your way to the Shire set (#2 above) you are bound to be stuck, indefinitely and by design, at -10 item levels than raiders (#1).

To make things even "better", the i270 Shire set is already available exclusively to raiders, but not to those who put considerably more time in grinding for their equipment on a weekly basis.

I do see an imperative to reward raiders in the MMO-ish sense, but the only way I have seen this being executed so far is conveniently and artificially crippling the RPG/grinding player-base.

Would the suggestion by the dev team be to simply unsubscribe till the artificial lockouts expire?