The stats squish is… decent, but I dunno why they didn’t stats squish tampering and some unique stats. We could have had much better balance with.
To your point, I have been playing GW2 for 9 years now, and on some characters I have the same gear from 8-9 years. And you know what, I still play the game and those characters. I play a game cuz it is fun not cuz I want to be stronger. Getting stronger is a mean not a goal. I want horizontal progression. More ways to play. More builds. Not playing the same build with 10x damage.