I've explored more than most players. I'm not expecting you to feel sorry for me, since I'm one of the people who explores anyway.

I'm pointing out that much of the encouragement to explore is removed when not only will you not find anything, you won't even spot a clue that something could sometimes be there to find. Why reward the guy who happens to kill Fred the mob when Fred has the sword of doom but not the guy who kills him when Fred is without his sword?

If people in a position to explore a new area clear everything out early on, or people who go and download maps of areas clear out gear, then other people are unlikely to find limited stuff under the present set-up. That discourages exploration. You may feel that people should have to go through an area many many times and kill each mob many many times, to deserve rewards from exploration. I believe that you may be right in terms of who deserves reward, but right or not, it discourages exploration to know that your effort may not be met with material reward. Sure, exploration can be fun without material reward, but you have cited the change in limited gear status as something to promote exploration. That brings the material reward into focus.

If I take a specific example of a slow wand. It looks to me as if this is now limited. This is something I found and was very pleased to find when I explored the area with it. Now, if I explored the area, I would not find stuff like this. I'd find a potion of little comparable use to a mage. I admit that when I found this slow wand, I was very surprised that it was not limited. I even think that it should be limited.

However, I don't think making it limited in any way encourages me to explore. If anything the effect is the opposite. I could have explored the area, and unless I repeatedly checked the appropriate place I would never know this wand existed. Assuming many such places exist without such a wand, I would spend a great deal of time checking these places, and at the end of the day there would be a very good chance that I'd never know about this item. Is it fun to repeatedly check the same places? Not as far as I can see, so people aren't going to do it as much if the chances of it proving fruitless increase. Or if they are, they aren't going to enjoy doing it much.

Since you have said I don't have a leg to stand on, I'll summarise my own exploration history. When I explore with others I am normally far more effective at exploration than them. I'm the guy who notices the bit of the room description that can be interacted with, or the one who finds a niche of some description that isn't shown in the room. The one who examines objects as well as loring/id'ing them, and then examines any details shown up by the first examination. I've played one chracter solely dedicated to exploration and research (a shifter). When I played a thief, I did a lot of exploration with him too, to take advantage of peek and steal. I spent a big chunk of time trying to find a way into silent tower with my drow warrior, including asking everyone I knew (and most of my other characters have spent time on this too). I did in fact find a quest to do so but it dead-ended and when I reported the dead-end it seemingly was removed.

I've solved a lot of the quests in the game for minimal reward, because I like doing them (exception being a mini-quest that costs about 9 gold to do and has a reward of a couple of hundred copper).

I've found five proper quests in the last two weeks (or at least, five separate rewards). One of these took me 14 hours to do, without spending time doing anything else. I was mudding until 6 in the morning with work the next day because I didn't know if I could log off without wasting what I'd already achieved. If you don't think I explore, I think you've got me muddled with someone else. If your post was phrased at "me" simply because mine was written in the first person, then ok, perhaps I am reacting negatively for nothing.

But ultimately, setting aside whether you deserve to find stuff if it is maxed out and you never come back, I don't agree that limiting gear will promote exploration. This is because it will increase the chances of nothing being found from exploration.