Yep, I stopped playing WoW after vanilla/TBC because of this very reason. So I'd prefer it if GW2 kept rare armour... well, rare. It's nice for everyone to feel empowered and awesome like they have the best character and like they are the best player in the world, but not-so-nice when everyone has the best gear. The game loses it's massive feel. It's nice to have an elite in a game - even if you're not a part of it. It's reassuring to even know that the game caters to that audience. It makes in-game achievements really seem like achievements. It's pretty hollow when everyone is running around in the best gear.
Myeh, in terms of a game where these items can give you a benefit, no.
Luckily, in gw2 competitive play is equal, so there's no point me arguing about it
I think anything that forced repetition for gain is a problem, but others have mentioned it should be purely cosmetic, then I don't care. I guess if someone want's to spend 3 days straight of gameplay to get 1 item then let them. But that's borderline insanity.
I grew up in MMOs over the past decade plus, where you could get rare items, randomly with no effort, just luck, items where you had to camp 18 hour respawns or beat people to logging in when server crashed/restart after patch but played a class which couldn't deal enough damage in short spaces so others would always win it over me purely because of class (I did however get all the rares at some point). I actually had characters which were pretty unfair to play against people.
Today, I hate these systems because not everyone puts equal amount of effort in to it, although having to do x amount of dungeon crawls means everyone has to do the same. But I believe somewhere down the line games turned from being pick up and play for everyone to the opposite, where those who can devote time prosper and they believe those who can't shouldn't as much.
However in this game I don't think we have to worry at all
Then we could get into the debate of "It's not how you play but with whome you play", aka, most of us have been there? decent guild? hard content? those people who get carried? Yep.
Some of us work for it, others almost get it handed to them. Not always, not every instance, not every game mind you, but it happens.
