You can reach max ilvl for the older expansions with just the tome gear that was available in those expansions now as they started removing the "unique" label from the rings. 130 gear in Mor Dhona from 2.0, Shire 270 gear for 3.0, etc. The thing is they don't remove that label modifier until the newest expansion is out like at the Endwalker launch when they removed the "Unique" label from the 5.0 tome rings.

What I would like to see is them removing the "Unique" label from the tome rings when the 24 man raids come out as that's when players can start buying upgrade items with coins. Players should be able to get to the max ilvl at some point in the patch cycle with tome gear and enjoy that before the next big patch ilvl jump. Especially if they took the time to acquire the tomes to buy the tome gear and get the upgrade items. Gamers enjoy maxing out characters. It's one of the reasons we play video games. I've done raids for most of the expansions since back in 2.0 and have always thought the way our rings work is silly. There were times when I used both raid ring and upgraded tome ring for daily content just because it got me to the max ilvl even if it wasn't BiS.

After all, the 24 man patches are the catch up patches. You still have to buy the current tome gear with the currently capped tomes. You're also still limited by the number of hunts you can do and the weekly 24 man coin lockout. Players on the tome gear path are looking at ten or so weeks just to get things upgraded if they are just doing the 24 man raids (which can take longer each week to do as you'll be running all three raids to get one of each coin at the end).

So yeah, it's not even really about needing to be stronger and definitely never said it had to be ASAP. If it was about power, the 6.4 augmented and basic tome ring combo tome is better than the max ilvl savage ring stat wise for SCH. There's also that the last relic steps haven't been released and tome wep upgrades aren't even available until hunts/24 mans are stocked with the wep upgrade item. I know those are coming and fine with waiting for them as I know though that those will be out months before the new expansion drops. Plenty of time prior to Dawntrail to feel like the gearing cycle is complete for the expansion.

Since it was said, there's a lot in XIV that people don't actually need. Just things people want to have like more glam plates. A tackle box. The last step of the crafter relics despite no recipes that need them. Even people doing savage, don't need max gear. It gets cleared by some groups in under two weeks. There's basically nothing in this game that absolutely needs max gear. The only bits of content that possibly actually may need the boost in power would be the Ultimates which you have to unlock post savage raids so you probably have max gear anyway (and maybe the Criterion Savage dungeons need it?).

Again, not about power for me, so if they remove one ring slot...cool, players can get to the max ilvl even with tome gear and the ilvl gear is the same across the character screen. They could also take that as a chance to fix the off tilt layout of the gear around our characters since we lost the belt gear slot.

Fixing the ring gear slots by removing the unique label earlier or making a 2nd tome ring with different stats would just be a nice QoL thing. It just doesn't make sense to have one gear slot that can't be the same ilvl as the rest once people have easy access to upgrade materials.