I'm feelin' chatty today -- look out! Near the end, this will become relevant to Swoops' original post.
Both Blizzard and twinks take the path of least resistance when it comes to game dynamics. Historically speaking, Blizzard does things en masse when possible e.g. disables legacy set bonuses, changes all gem sockets from particular colors to prismatic, instills level requirements on gear that didn't previously have them, etc. Something has to be pretty disrupting to make Blizzard nerf individual items e.g. Cata's Big Daddy 70s nerf, banning twinks for ilvl 180 gear.
Likewise, most twinks disappear when games don't pop consistently. Unless a bracket sees a source of fodder like f2ps, expansion capped PvPers, or levelers (when battlegrounds were combined), getting games to happen in a given bracket takes significant effort. Most twinks won't undertake that effort, and I can't blame them.
However, exceptions to fodder-fed brackets arise during every expansion. As
@Chops noted, we see exceptions even now. There are several reasons why, and the one I want to focus on here is why people gear. While we hate the grind, we respect it. We respect the time and effort it takes to research a great gearset, then pursue it. We can be average players, and if there is one thing the duration of merged brackets reminded us, it's that most of us (myself included) remain pretty average players, and that's fine. Twinks demonstrate grit and creativity, and we respect that. Blizzard squishing levels is a big deal. Blizzard pushing access to expansions down to level 10 is a
really big deal.
Assuming that Blizzard doesn't just scale everyone to 50 in non-endgame battlegrounds (logistically doubtful, given the chasm of available buttons between lower and higher characters and the increased playerbase of each bracket as a result of the squish), then SL's stat and level squish offers a fresh, exciting take on gearing out a twink. Certain choices of gear will matter. How you gem your gear will matter. How gear scales will matter. In short, tradeoffs will matter. To be sure, we won't see a gazillion choices. One or two pieces of gear (except for non-caster weapons) will rule every slot, for every class. But that always brought out the best in us. Twinks are the best min/maxxers in the game, and made the most out of small differences. Do you want the biggest stat stick, or socket gear that lets you stack certain stats, or proc gear?
This is why Swoops' post excites me. By keeping raid gear static for SL i.e. non-scaling, Blizzard showed us they will keep doing what they have always done. Blizzard's current approach to how gear scales in WoW will not change, beyond the level and ilvl squish. The list also shows us that no raid gear is going to land close enough to the top end of a bracket to automatically assume BiS, but players who want to retain the gear and their level may benefit enough from scaling to justify it numerically, not just pridefully.
Therefore, we have a solid headstart on gearing options for different brackets. We already know which gear has excessive stats for its level in the midbrackets and the mid-uppers. It's not a coincidence that certain pieces of the same gear showed up for 29s, 39s and 49s, and that 69s and 79s took an almost identical approach to gearing. When gear from the upper expansions gets squished into and combined with the lower brackets, we will see some additional interesting options appear (which will likely bring some pain in the ass grinding). We won't know enchanting ilvl restrictions nor how stats scale in battlegrounds for a few months yet.
When the first few twinks start gearing out in the (new) midbrackets, new gear discoveries and our beloved arguments about BiS will begin to bloom. This is the biggest change to WoW since Cataclysm, and "on paper", one of the most interesting opportunities for nutcase gear grinders. If Blizzard doesn't do the same thing in SL as they did in Cata i.e. make half of battlegrounds unplayable because of either technical issues or OP burst damage (both very real threats), than an increasing flow of new gear information could entice twinks to put some time into new characters and take on new challenges.
