It would be the opposite for that example.
If they brought back vendor gear it would take longer to gear up.
You talking about getting an item “13 times” says everything you need to say.
You get gear extremely quick, such that you have the luxury of getting duplicates.
That wouldn’t happen if they had the badge system.
It would take weeks just to get one item.
That’s another reason why I’m surprised to see people who don’t engage in progression content comment on ways gear should be acquired.
You will never get badge gear AND the current systems, so that means 90 percent of the gear the OP is wearing would be gone.
With as little effort as they put into end game progression, they probably wouldn’t even have any badges in the first place, because if they DID do a system like this it would end up encouraging M+ and heroic+ raiding.
I’d be fine with this, but please just realize it is not in any way related to the way systems worked 10 years ago.
That stuff was there PURELY because they didn’t know how to create a good catch up, and now they have more catch ups than they have progression systems.
Its not needed, and your example just further demonstrates this embarrassment of riches.