Example 1: Critical Hit Rate
I believe you are correct here. Critical hit rate, when it goes beyond certain point drastically change the way to play. I had already made an example (here :
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=18087) with RP +25% heal increase on crit. Which was pointless to use below 12% or so crit. But immensely op past 50%.
Example 2: Armor Stacking
I believe this to be mathematically incorrect, considering there is an absolute hardcap on armor : it mitigates 80% (or 75%, cant remember) maximum of the damage no matter how much you got. And it is applied after toughness. As gear and armor goes up, all physical dps can reach a confortable 50% armor penetration (with or without armor debuff), which means, for a class to truly mitigate 80% of the damage, it would need to stack a ridiculous 7k armor (8,5k facing a mara/WL). This value is not even possible to reach for a sovereign geared IB using racial tactic + 907 armor pot. The thing with armor is, as it increases, so does the value of WS. So, as both values increase with gear, the state of things remains the same imo. A WP stacking 4,4k armor now, facing 40% mitigation, has 60% mitigation. If he pushes 5.5k in sovereign, facing 50% penetration, he now has 62% mit. Nothing has changed.
Example 3: Constant Value Effects
I disagree here, although partly. Procs that are constant, will gain in power as the gear goes up. The massive advantage that they provide is that they are not subject to toughness check and only fight against resist (which are capped quick). Most dps are very close or already softcapped in their main dps increasing stat. Gear increase won't change that. What could change is crit and crit multiplier. If those are out the window on gear, then procs will remain strong, specially on classes that can't max out the dps stats/crit (i.e. tank and dps healer).
The partly disagree is regarding the relative power of procs damage compared to wounds. Now the ratio is high, later it will be lower. Same for constant stats buffs and debuffs. Although, stats buffs are somewhat a nice perk to facilitate customization, as most are on use (from tanks or dps). The stats increasers that suffer most are tactics, as +160 strength start to pale a lot compared to +15% damage when you're already close/or softcapped with gear.
Example 4: Bottom-End Creep
Here it gets interesting. WALL OF TEXT
The state of combat doesn't change in any meaningful way from conqueror all the way to Warlord. The stats and the spikes gets heavier to some extend (not by that much, I will explain in a bit), but the way to fight remains unchanged. For example, as a lot of ''awesome'' premade have experienced so far : you can't rush head-in as a premade to kill a WB like people used to do then
https://youtu.be/z4hzEKZCRUY?t=223
Simply speaking, the prerequisite for that kind of stomping was the -8th pieces bonus on sovereign/5 pieces on WF + the insane mongoloids crit bonus to heal and damage that those sets provided + the lotd cloaks and pocket items.
The stats on the sets themselves mathematically do not provide you with enough power creep to change the nature of RvR play to that point, specially if crit related problems have been dealt with. If there is already a plan to remove the OP set bonus and on use ability (no crit, no CC, damage/healing power and crit, etc), then instating a ''gear item level'' isn't needed, as the difference in stats/armor value between Invader and sovereign, is already kinda small. For example, Sovereign total stats difference to Invader (for IB + I used best Genesis jewels + cloak as sovereign has both jewel and cloak) is 38 stats points and 660 armor, with 5% less % base stuff. This is not enough of a difference to allow anything but a marginally different way to play between 2 groups. Warlord is basically the same as sovereign, if sovereign as no OP procs and on use 8th piece ability.
Where it gets interesting (and where your proposal makes sense) is if you go lower and lower down the gear chain, all the way to now : Annihilator ruin. In the best combo i can find, the stats difference between Annihilator/ruin and Sovereign for IB is a staggering 229 stats points difference and 750 armor (basically, 80 renown points worth of goods). Which is enormous and, imo, enough to change the way you play by a lot. Now, there is 8 gear sets between Anni and sovereign. Although I understand the need to not carebear-give sets away to new people, wanting to slash down an 8 sets gap seems like a complicated solution to a simple problem.
Conqueror/sentinel should be considered rank 1 in T4, with a roughly 100 point stats differential. Then invader/darkpromise/warlord/tyrant are rank 2 (i.e. they compare very well in stats distribution, with about a 50 points stat differential). Sovereign and worn sovereign are slightly above.
Implementing sets like this would already be your solution 2 : you are maxed out items 2 ranks below. The absolute want to make annihilator a T4 sets, creates the need to artificially cap people's gear, only so sets that are too low can compete, specially considering that someone sub rank 40 can wear them, and honestly should not be able to compete in T4 as sub 40 player lacks abilities + tactic slot. But that's is off-topic.
Example 5: Broad Design Change
Self-explanatory. Nothing to say here.
