I will never understand how someone could find less enjoyment in the fact that another human being out there could possibly put themselves on equal footing by another means.

If my personal sense of enjoyment was bound to how I compared myself to another player then I'd really need to reassess my ego and epeen. As someone who spent a week doing the 270 Anima step I could care less if that guy AFKing on top of the Diddlyshire rock has an i275 weapon. Neither do I care if that DRG over there finished his 270 on day 1 (I still think he's crazy though).