Here’s the thing – even if you lower the M+ / Valor Upgrade / Whatever ilvl cap to something crazy like 15 ilvl below Heroic Raiding… it’s STILL the best way to gear up until that -15 ilvl cap. You spam M+. Any difficulty of raiding (see: Normal) that lives in that range is totally worthless because you can spam M+ all weekend and be kitted out vs getting 1 or 2 drops from full clearing a raid that you probably aren’t even full clearing for most of a patch.
What M+ needs isn’t an ilvl deficit, it’s a lockout. WoW PvE has ALWAYS functioned on lockouts. Either directly via Raiding or via something like Cata-era Valor Caps acting as a similar gate on the casual end.
Now, we still have Lockouts for Raiding, we still have the pseudo-lockout for casual content (how many cyphers you can get in a day to advance your research to increase your ZM gear ilvl, that kinda thing), but M+ now exists as an endgame pillar with no lockout surrounded by content that DOES have them.
Makes no sense and makes it blatantly the best choice for any bracket in which the gear it provides is meaningful. (atm, that’s every bracket, btw)
It couldn’t just be a copy/paste of Raid Lockouts. M+ isn’t designed in that way. But they could slap 3 charges on the Keystone that carry over to upgraded/downgraded keystones, make the EoD chest guarantee loot, and make opening it require a charge on your Keystone. There. Lockout. You get 3 picks. Then you still benefit from running more thanks to the Great Vault and Valor Upgrading.
Would have to fiddle with loot trade eligibility and keystone charges but I’m sure they could make it work.