We don't need them anymore.

[Astronis]

Well, that's the issue with comparison. A trophy is a trophy in that it only exists to show off your achievement. It doesn't have any other purpose.

I think that's a pretty narrow definition of 'trophy'. Part of it is being desirable for some reason. Many high-level real life trophies are made of precious metals, for instance, which if nothing else you could sell and make a lot of money off them. Quite a lot of them are also beautiful in their own right. Much older trophies were used as warning not to mess with the person who had them, like a string of ears taken from fallen foes.

In FFXIV, some trophies are awarded for competition--currently, augmented Hellhound weapons and exclusive portrait frames. I would hope that old Feast rewards that were awarded for PVP competition would be added to that list. Others are awarded for difficult achievements--clearing Ultimates, obtaining all the EX mounts, stuff like that. All of those are desired for more than just showing off achievement, but they are used that way, too. People aren't wearing "Ultimate Legend" titles only because they think the title sounds cool.

A hat exists to look good. Using a hat that looks super good as a trophy is just asking for someone to start copying it because it looks good with 0 care or regard for whatever the hat meant as 'a trophy'.

Yeah. I want the flaming dangernoodle from P8S, but don't want to learn High Concept. Woe Is Me, I don't get a flaming dangernoodle. At least for a long time. Kinda want one of the augmented Hellhound weapons too, but pffffhahahhaahah playing that much PVP. In a way, The Desire for Shiny Things That We Have Nevertheless Not Earned was addressed by Yoshi-P in his latest "I'm Disappointed" letter on modding. People were devaluing the achievements of other players by just plopping the Ultimate weapons on themselves without doing the work to get them...in other words, treating them with zero regard for what they mean as a trophy. So I hope that whatever plan they have for the old Feast rewards preserves some of the exclusivity, since the devs do seem to understand this motivation in players.

To me it seems like OP is fully aware that nobody in the modern community gives a shit about achievements of PVPers from 10 years ago, and that those rewards were the only way they'd ever get any acknowledgement for those and the moment you can get the same looks without needing the actual 'trophy' attached, their peak life moment of "top100 wintrader gamemode player" will lose what little value it had remaining.

Sounded more like OP cared about the promise of exclusivity being gone back on, but that's just assuming they're telling the truth. I'm sure there's some sting in OP's special item getting much wider use when he tried very hard to obtain it when it was available. That's understandable.