this bracket, more than any other bracket is plagued by severe grandfathering of gear. gear that was once item level 60+ and took WOTLK enchants. most is still in the game however item level has been lowered.
i have seen several with these GF'd players, shaman's. warriors, rogues, and mostly paladins. paladins are god mode in this bracket with disc priests in tow.
many claim they don't use them to keep it fair and not kill the bracket, but there are those who don't. they are like many who use every advantage, sorta like 24's owning mostly 20's and 74's in with mostly 70's.
Wow, I'm not sure where to start with this. Are we even talking about US 49s? I didn't think EU 49s got games last year, so I'll assume US 49s unless you say otherwise.
"Plagued" by grandfathered gear?
First off, maybe 10 players took the time to get the WotLK enchantments on their 49s in the three-week window of opportunity availed to them. I'm one of those ten players. Of those ten players, only three or four currently play in the bracket. This is a magnitude less than any other bracket, active or inactive. Heck, there are more players in every other bracket (except 80-84) using grandfathered gear than there are active 49s with grandfathered enchantments.
Second, the few players who did get grandfathered enchantments and still play (myself included) haven't used them on the field for months, if ever. Name names if you've seen otherwise.
Third and most importantly, the impact of such gear doesn't come close to the grandfathered disparity of other brackets (60-64 comes to mind). For 49s, we'll find a 7-10% total difference in a given stat, depending on how you gear. The biggest enchant difference, 40 stam to bracers, gains 28 stam over the typical 12 stam enchant. That's almost as much as you gain from finishing up the mining profession at 49 (30 stam). The 275 hp to chest enchant no longer works.
To compare grandfathered enchants in the 49 bracket to the massive gap between F2P 20s and P2P 24s is sensationalist at best. But then, the claim that 74s own 70s is also rife with inaccuracy.
Moving on, paladins are indeed very strong in 49s, but to say that they're god mode with disc priests in tow? Instabubbles on any high-damage class makes them god mode. Rogues, hunters, paladins, and others hit really hard -- it's 49s, after all. High-speed and instant healing make a much larger impact in a bracket like this.
I'm not sure where you got this vision that a bunch of grandfathered characters are running around globaling everything in sight, with a cadre of pocket healers in tow. I haven't seen that in the games I've played in 2011.
To be fair, I'd say a bunch of regular 49s are running around globaling everything in sight, with a couple of healers in tow.
It's a rough bracket, and clearly I enjoy it, to have written a response this long. My point is, if you're going to criticize the features of the bracket, make it for the right reasons -- grandfathered enchantments isn't one of them.
(for stealth), Fear, and Dispel are all dependant on it.