Buying gear

by Beorn , <End of Failed Timeline>, Monday, April 22, 2013, 18:03 (4234 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I don't think you're correct. He said

Second, because it's so much better, the game has to be balanced around purchased weapons.

That seems to mean that he thinks that the gear is actually BETTER, not just easier to acquire. I don't think that's true.

This is how I read it:
Due to the statistical unlikelihood of receiving ideally-balanced gear of epic quality through normal gameplay, the only way you'll generally be able to equip those items is to purchase them on the Auction House. While it's true that you could acquire any specific item through normal gameplay, the chances of that are so incredibly thin that it's generally not worth the effort to grind for it.

Even if I did find an item of "epic" quality, there's no guarantee that it would even be balanced for my particular character/build. But one man's trash is another man's treasure! My best bet, then, is to post that less-than-ideal item to the AH where someone else can buy it, and then I can use that money to purchase something that is more ideal for my character.

In this sense, a piece of gear from the AH that is tuned for my character actually is better than what I received from the in-game drop. For better or worse, this is how D3 is designed. When I played, it certainly felt like I was being forced to the Auction House even though I didn't want to use it, and that left me with a bad taste in my mouth.