I had mine since first week of the game. They were rare, they look good, and it's a status symbol. Although it seems like a petty issue, having better stuff than everyone else is one of the driving points in an online game. Why the hell do the people at Funcom have communistic tendencies, when something gets rare and special, they make them reappear and make it easy to get for everyone. (nano armor, elite armor, sunglasses etc)
While some might argue it's only fair to give everyone a chance to get them, it makes acquiring stuff to look unique pointless. When I first started, people had unique looks, and it's fun to look at people's armor. Now everyone is a clone, wearing the same sh*t as everyone else. Do Funcom plans to turn this into another EQ where everyone looks alike and boring as hell? The game is screwed enough as it is, instead of messing with stuff like Kataras, they should concentrate on fixing the dumb bugs instead. Another example of misdirected effort at Funcom. And yes it is ridiculous if you hang out around omni and 90% of the people you see wear elite armor.
We want exclusitivy, and if some people ain't smart enough or won't put up the effort to get the good stuff, then it's their problem. Funcom shouldn't listen to their whining and just make stuff reappear when someone ***** they're "hard to get". We worked hard to get our nice stuff, and it's really annoying when the stuff you worked so hard for, becomes available again and every single newbie starts selling them on the shopping channels.