Yup, Dev’s have been saying that from the start.
Noob gear is going to be freely tradeable.
Mid level gear is going to be BOT most likely.
Any real end game gear will not be tradeable.
They have always intended for trading to be severely limited. While it is going to end up more being gifting noobs rather than trading, they call it trading to try to please the pro-trading crowd.
I am fine with this as long as gear can be found/earned in a reasonable time. I am not fine with farming tokens all day to gamble at merchants. If the game just decays into slot machines to gear, I would much rather have full trading.