"When you don't log in very often and get hit with the already existing limited equipment purging, it will now not let you keep limited items that are under-limit at the time of that check."

I'm confused about the above quote from the code changes forum, it seems to say that once you get hit by the hoarding code you lose ALL your limited stuff, no matter if the other items are under their limit? I don't get the reasoning if so, isn't the purpose of the hoarding code to keep the over-limit items in play, and under-limit items ARE already in play without purging them from someone? The system as was seemed to be working just fine for the more casual players.

I saw some specific issues that weren't resolved.

Example:
Object X
Person1 has X which has a limit of 5.
Person1 logs in barely, and will be hit by a gear purge on July 10th.
Person2, Person3, Person4, Person5, Person6 all go looking for X, but it is currently over limit - 5/5. So they can't get it.
The expectation is that Person1 will lose it on gearpuge, allowing others to be able to get X.
Instead, when the gearpurge check happens on July 10th (the only time it does check), by chance on that day at that exact second X was at 3/5 for its limit.
So Person1 does not lose X, even though right afterwards it goes back to the max limit, now keeping it out of circulation for another month (now at two, sequentially - though I've seen this happen for surprisingly long periods of time).

This change solves that. Now it won't be dependent on X being under limit at the time of the check, putting it back into circulation.

The problem is that limits are not consistent. Something could be over-limit for 99% of the month, but if it was under limit for the 1% of the month the purged was check - then Person1 got to keep the item. And if person1 is holding multiple instances of this item (which I also saw multiple times), it becomes a more dramatic deprivation.

I love players, including casual players.
I don't love limited items being out of circulation from a reasonable opportunity to lose it. And I think purges happen reasonably in terms of time in that they aren't over-applicable and request a comparatively minimal investment to justify retaining exclusive items.

Hope that helps explain!

Though it seems the system could be made better by just increasing the frequency of the checks. It isn't clear if it's done (only) on login or at some other time(s), but couldn't it be done, say every few days, like at each reboot a script would go through every pfile above L10 (before anyone is logged in, to avoid possible lag spikes), and check for any over-limit item in the pfile which doesn't meet the required play time for keeping it, and then flag it for the purging message for whenever the player happens to log in the next time?

Anyways, I think I'll now be even more wary of grabbing any high-end limited gear that I happen to come across (unless I'm pretty sure of consistent play time in the near future).

Does this mean unique items (ie items that are 1/1) or items that do not have fluctuating numbers (hummingbird pendants) should be unaffected by this change?

Unique items aren't affected, as this was already generally true with them.
Non-fluctuating numbers CAN be affected.