If you define starter gear as stuff that is very attainable then the gap between refers and high gear is not that big. I recently lost 90% of my gear to inactivity and I was able to regather every piece but one within a day. Then I lost link died and got looted and was able to regear with just noteworthy stuff in an hour. The drop from half a set of legendary and the rest famous/noteworthy to 90% noteworthy was 2str, 3dex, 8 dam.


There are just so many similar pieces of gear that if one item is maxed you just grab another that is slightly lower.


Honestly you are proposing solutions that are essentially already implemented for problems that don’t exist(because a solution exists already).


POS had no limits, let you pick cabal at char creation, and started you at 51 with a pretty silly outfit gear. It hasn’t turned that game into a hit, I doubt it helps here.