The Lessons Not Learned.

[ForteNightshade]

Look to WoW as an example of what a raiding community will do when there's content that offers a chance at any sort of power gain - it gets turned into a mandatory commitment.

You're also making an assumption that the gear would have the exact same stats. What if it didn't? What if some jobs ended up with new BiS items coming from Criterion? Players already give a damn about minor DPS increases, that's what the entire BiS chase is about. If they didn't, no one would care about having BiS.

Last time I looked... this isn't WoW.

I made no such assumption; specifically saying it would be "either or". Regardless, the raid community, wouldn't care. Not enough to make it mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. If they did, people would lock out players still using one or two crafting pieces or tanks with sub-optimal accessories. Hell, Ultimate weapons are BiS in the odd patches yet nobody cares about locking those in even for speed runs. Speaking on that, non-meta jobs are still represented in parsing. I should know, I play one of them: Warrior.

We have entirely separate BiS options for jobs based around skill speed. 2.46 Dragoon is weaker than 2.5, the preferred set. Both are still listed for player preference.

To be entirely blunt, this screams of someone who has never set foot in the raid community making baseless accusations of them. It's complete nonsense. Will players want to chase new BiS pieces? Some, probably. Will it be made mandatory for PF or even static recruitment? Nope. Unless you're attempting to join a top rank speed kill group, literally no one will a damn if you have the i630 Crit/Pie Ring or the hypothetical new Criterion Crit/Det one.