The problem is that some of the “best” gear comes from easily completed activities.
Blizzard has lost touch with how they need to maintain player interest in their game. Yes , players love instant gratification and it is wise to use that in your game.
That said , look at games like Destiny , Diablo and even places like Casinos. They understand that if you automatically get what you want then you wont continue to play their game. They feed you small rewards in an attempt to keep you going after the big reward.
WoW needs to get back to this trend. Right now they have an EASY path to epics , that once obtained make some players feel like they dont really need to progress much further to be where they want to be. It turns the game into a boring grind where you know that if you put in time you will always get what you want.
They need to mask the time investment behind a effort/rng system again. It needs to feel like you put some kind of effort into the reward and it also needs an element of rng towards you getting the reward. That way you feel “special” because you finally got it and then you feel your “effort” was justified in the end reward.
Gear progression needs to be reworked. Instead of gradually giving players more and more items there needs to be difficulty blocks , to make you feel like youre walking up stairs rather than a ramp. Then they need to impliment cosmetic gear into the game like they used to. Each tier had a different color of gear for each class specific set per difficulty level.
TLDR; They messed up when they turned the entire gearing system into the catch up gearing system. A system that doesnt leave players with unique or interesting rewards.