Maybe it has to do with older gear? On players that don't die a lot, is their gear circulated out quicker than 'fresh' gear? For example, if I went and requested the Sword of Vengeance from Mortorn as a storm shaman, it maxed out with that request, your player average calculation came through and it became overmaxed..will I keep my sword longer than anyone else who had it already if I die?

I'm still running into issues of losing a couple of pieces of gear per death consistently whereas before it was maybe one piece every five deaths.