I personally hate having really high end gear (to the point where I don't even try to get it). Suddenly people who have no reason to attack you start throwing themselves at you. Every fight you win is ended with some snide tell about how your gear outclassed theirs. Or people randomly pander to you for gear and trades and so on. The game to me is really good when you hit that sweet spot of "good enough to do what I need to do" gear just below garnering the attention of the random gear whores in the game.