Indeed a slap to those who made efforts, however grinding weapon is not an answer to end game content, this wrong design must be fixed. The goal is not to create a Transcendence System 2.0 or Orange Recipe 2.0 but to create a decent ecosystem to open way for PvP/GvG and Party Play balance.
Big Power Gap will only spoil the overall ecosystem, more solo dungeon, sharks/whales, and godly equipped pvper/gvger will only spoil the game.
Whenever there is new content update like Rank9 that suggested coming this year, the existing equipment will be obsoleted, that’s why item grinding should not take heavy role in game-time sinking.
Finally, we still don’t know how is the implementation, but I think it is right to upgrade ET equipment better than 315 Orange