Gear Score, in my ARR?

[Alhanelem]

Casuals seem to hate a gear score system, why? Well it seems their argument is that they might not have the best gear, but they have skill which compensates for that.

This isn't a casual vs hardcore battle. In fact, many of the people shut out by gear score are actually trying to become more hardcore, but nobody will let them. Just because you don't have the best gear doesn't mean you don't have a good understanding of how the game is played. And in most cases, the standard of gear necessary for completing an event, particularly in the game in its current state, is minimal. Gear Score just gives elitists another number they can use to make themselves look awesome while shutting out anyone who is trying to break into endgame.

Gear score isn't any good for the content finder either, again because quality of gear is not directly proportional to player skill. Some of those people with lower end gear but good knowledge of game mechanics would greatly benefit from playing with some people with higher end gear, but in all likelyhood the content finder won't allow that to happen.

[Ingolf]

It's good if you only see it.

It's bad if anyone can see it.

[RudyFails]

It's good if you only see it.

It's bad if anyone can see it.

I don't get this.

If people know it's there, chances are they'll ask you what yours is.
If you decided to designate that information to "classified" people will assume it isn't that good (let's be honest).

Furthermore, when certain gear types yield a high score, you can bet people will be looking for you to have that max proficiency gear setup and viewing someone's "setup" is just one click away.

Even if examples like this happen in one form or another now, putting actual numbers on it clearly makes it worse.