[Suggestion] Variable level loot drops

Under the current loot-drop system, if you get equipment drops, whatever the quality, 80-level gear drops for 80-level players, etc. In a game where you primarily gear up from drops, this would be great, but no 80-level character is going to be geared in fine or masterwork gear. Heck, we sneer at rares, and if we have full exotic, we work toward ascended, right?

I would like to suggest, if it's possible, that the loot-dropped gear have varying levels according to their quality. For example, blues would randomly be somewhere between level 20-40, greens would be 40-60, rares would be 60-80 and only exotics would necessarily match the player level. (But no gear dropped would be at a level higher than the player's level.)

This would have many benefits: the first being that lower-tier mats would drop from salvaging lower-leveled gear. This would drop the prices of the middle-range leather, metals and wood, while at the same time making higher-tier materials less ubiquitous and more valuable. I think most people would welcome that economic change. And people would not need to game the system any more by keeping a mid-level character to open loot bags in order to get the mid-range mats. An additional benefit would be that the gear might have some intrinsic value now: you could save gear that your 80-level character looted and pass it to your lower-level characters as they are leveling up.

All gear drops are salvage trash. I don't know that your system is any worse, but I don't see that it's better either. The gear you find isn't meant specifically to be equipped by you on the toon that found it. It might be sold, salvaged, or could motivate you to start up a new character better suited to use it. It seems like you want to see the game change so you equip with your own drops, but why?

The level of the loot drop is dependent on the level of the player and the level of the area.

Things that drop varying level things when salvaged already exist. That was introduced with LS3. The three unstable salvage items. So there is no need to introduce yet another probably less convenient thing due to having to deal with minor sigils and runes.

I'd be leery of anything that reduced my intake of elder wood. The amounts of that needed for guild halls and legendaries is unreal. If they ever rebalance mats generation, they need to rebalance the sinks at the same time.

Oh I forgot to mention. There is absolutely no need for changes in the case of things that can be gathered directly which means wood and metal. They are literally there for the taking for anyone who wants them.