Back to OBT days, I used every gears I got during killing mobs and quests as long as I saw it have higher stat. The Hunting Ground, indeed, is very useful. Players no longer need to worry about lacking power and def in general PvE. However this also makes the previous item system become unrelated. For example, Roxona set, who is using roxona set now when you can just go to HG and get a better gears?
Stuff from Questing is also unrelated. Besides silver and Stat points, gears from questing are useless with low defend and attack power. The only usage for these gears is to add to adventure journal.
In addition to this, like @LightDarkSide has said, questing is no longer needed when you can run all the way to 330 just by daily Dungeon, mercenary mission and leeching exp. Maybe IMC can remake questing into something not only for exp but also for unlocking additional features (like animated macro for example)

In the end, ToS is a game that has big potential, a big cute delicious cake made by IMC but they just eat a bit and let the rest be rotted.
btw some ppl actually don’t like when seeing other players share their ideas about “How IMC can improve ToS”. I have been playing since the very first day (to get this name) and sharing these thoughts just to make me feel abit better since, as i said, our words have no effect on IMC.