Perhaps, but a certain amount of gambling is necessary for these types of games. It makes them both frustrating but also satisfying.
If you have a clear bar to fill it's the same... but not the same.
The problem is that in both cases, most of your time is being spent doing something you wouldn't do for its own merits. That's the problem--glamour gear grinding or relic, it's essentially doing video game chores. There's less pressure on the reward when the act itself is rewarding; dungeon grinding isn't, and anything that forces it is essentially demanding players invest significant time in something unfun. It's part of why I like the last quarter of PotD--it's doing something actually involving, and then the accursed hoard stuff functions as a lotto mini game after clearing a set of floors. There's no real relation to inflating iLevel, and it's not a thing you do to raise a number, it's just something worth doing.
It's also what I kind of like about Aquapolis--glamour gear mats, crafting mats, housing items, and a level sync that keeps you from too much power creep. 8 people is too many, but the lovely thing about Aquapolis is that it doesn't try to force you to take extra people, so you can just dip in with a buddy and lottery it up.
Neither fits into progression, but both work pretty well because they've managed to define an identity and a reward system that isn't automatically irrelevant at the next iLevel bump.
Let's be real here, people play to see that number tick up. If you keep this poverty gear cycle in, there's just no way to motivate people to do harder stuff.
Look at Gold Saucer. Some people don't even bother because it's so far outside primary character progression.
Look at EX primals? Why are they all rewarding nothing but weapons? Often outdated ones? Is that because all the gear progression is already taken up by "expert" dungeons?
Casual gear progression needs to be behind. Not "haha you'll get your twines next week", but a tier behind.
I think we're talking about doing harder stuff from different perspectives--there absolutely are people that only dip into the Savage stuff after it's had echo, or only feel comfortable trying once they've geared up enough. I'm not expecting casual players to suddenly want to raid progression, just saying that the gearing up and echo stuff will eventually get them to a place where they'll feel comfortable trying content that everyone else has already moved on from. People who aren't going to set foot in Savage to try and get an upgrade item pre-catchup patch aren't going to suddenly start raiding; they're already choosing to sacrifice and delay iLevel increasing a while. Savage SCoB is an interesting example; they screwed up by putting it on shared loot lockout with normal mode, but they did get some early takers. They later got another tier of people trying overgeared at i130, and at this point casual players are running through massively overpowered for their titles. Savage SCoB isn't really challenging anymore, but it is something that's had a remarkably long tail because it rewards something that isn't rendered obsolete even though all the gear involved has been surpassed. And that's what I want them to focus on--if they can release something I enjoy for the challenge today, and other people will take on once the challenge has been outpaced later, it's a win because I get what I want and the content will eventually be seen by a wider audience then would ever want to prog.
EX Primals should be rewarding accessories--the weapon only thing is dumb, but understandable to the extent that they clearly want to let everyone reset and instal-catchup at the start of every raid tier. They shamelessly use the birds as bonus incentive once the weapons are obsolete, and it's worth noting that it is incredibly effective. There are always bird farms. There are still pony farms. Somehow.
I guess I should also note poverty gear was a huge component of my eventual starting raiding. Specifically that I could gear up to a point where I could drop into a new thing to sub for somebody and not be total dead weight (because I was garbage at the time, but at least I was garbage with an acceptable amount of HP); the barrier to entry for newer players will get higher without tome gear or some equivalent putting them on equal enough footing they can contribute without having to dive all-in on raiding prep. Them having current-ish gear costs me nothing, makes my random EXDRs or normal runs go faster, and I guess makes them happy.
Is placating casuals with handouts really that much more important than the fact that almost half the content you release rewards NOTHING of value?
Why do dungeons not actually reward any useful gear? Maybe gearing through dungeons could be an option for casuals?
What about FATEs? Why are they so useless to levelcapped players? Maybe make them reward catchup gear from time to time?
On the first thing, probably? Just from a monetary perspective, it'd probably hurt them more to piss off casuals.
But none of that is an inherent problem with tomestone gear existing. They have all the freedom in the world to rework how gear tiers are distributed, and it's not tomestones limiting the dungeon gear iLevel. If anything, it's crafted and the normal raid tier gear that's forcing dungeon gear to irrelevance. If they moved Creator normal and crafted to 255, it'd have freed up 250 for dungeon gear which would have filled the cheap uncapped slot. Them intentionally having dungeon drops be so low isn't because tomestones exist. And even if they did reward useful gear? It's literally the same exact content many people are doing to get tomes anyway; there's nothing new to do there, there's no real difference between buying with tomes to do them besides lolRNG and forcing everybody to play the same way (you WILL run exdr for gear, no questions!)
I don't think WoW does this anymore.
I'm pretty sure they did with the Archimonde mount at the end of Draenor; I don't know if they're far enough along in Legion to have hit the point where they'd nuke the mythic mount's drop rate.
. I know the fight completely, it's just trying to remember and react (and I'm slow at reacting which is what I am trying to work on).