I'm on the same wavelengths on most things.
I'd add that savage gear shouldn't be the only gear giving people cool tools to strive for. Casual players also deserve to have fun and goals to reach. The ilvl difference between the two is already an incentive to go for savage. I also do think that bringing back a system like Diadem 1.0 for gear would generate an endless threadmill about running fun content, and could also make gear from dungeons less useless as well. This game really does struggle with the fundamentals of any RPG which is based on gear progression, finding newfangled stuff, replacing an old piece with something unique, etc. Being happy or proud of one's gear and not just a carbon copy of the BiS that everybody else also uses to a T.