Devs What Did You Do To NI?

[Malong]

Then they're straight into end game gear, without having to go into the inbetween stage gear, and not knowing how to use the gear.

This isn't necessarily the case. There are different styles of learning, and it doesn't necessitate having played with items to know "how to use" it. You can derive an item's utility by thinking abstractly and just looking at the stats. This is what players do when the first instance of an item is crafted or dropped. By your definition they wouldn't know "how to use" it.

And even if this phenomenon was true, players commonly get end game gear by the practice of borrowing items from others or their house banks. They, too, would theoretically not know "how to use" it. For some reason, there's no such similar objection to this practice compared to buying items.