I think there is definitely a problem with the item level gear progression in FFXIV. In my opinion, it doesn't serve any purpose anymore. With ilvl sync the difficulty of a dungeon or encounter can be adjusted easily. And the fact that only 4 relevant bosses (on which there is ilvl progression) are being released every 6 month makes the vertical progression silly. It isn't wow where a raid tier is about 12 bosses or more. Furthermore, gearing up is notoriously boring in FFXIV, with the lack of interesting perks on gear.

I think at this point most players would be fine acquiring gear mostly for glamour purposes, as you never really feel your character growing in poser when acquiring gear of increasing item level for a given expansion.