Re:The utter ignorance and arrogance of SOE... (Score 1)

Thanks for posting that. I'm the author, and it saves me from having to cut & paste. I've spoken to a lot of "sandbox" testers both on and off the forums and ingame, and they all confirm as well as they can (cognizant of their still in-force NDA's) that the level system was never as blatant as it is in the current implementation. They thought "level" was merely the shorthand used to describe "ability/toughness" - as it was designed to mean in the game.

In short, the CU was obviously rushed out the door and they used the level system as a way to avoid a ton of tedium in coding. The devs have been rather surprised at the ramifications - and they are basically now running around with a bucket in a house with a hundred leaks - metaphorically.