If your argument is that new players get throttled by experienced players only because of a gear disparity then you are just wrong.

If your argument is that experienced players can snowball faster with good gear, then sure, I can get behind that. But that can happen at any point regardless of there being an imaginary level requirement hooked onto gear.

Bottom line is that learning the mud and learning pk timing are pretty much the only things that separate new players from veteran players. If we remove one of those variables, the other one will still cause a gap and lead to the same end result: new players being worse than experienced ones.