I normally buy my own gear, except when an item is quite rare, or quite expensive (usually it will be both). Then, I use what the guild has. Now I don't always use top of the line gear, and I own all my own Epics. But if those rare and usually quite expensive items deteriorated like Crystal, I would soon no longer be able to play. Therein lies the flaw in making any tagged gear any different from that which I own outright.
There has to be a better solution than to make tagged gear any different than a set i would buy or farm. IMHO, and I know this will also be unpopular, inactive and/or banned players shouldn't be available to be used as pack mules as they are today. This is what has caused the glut in gear game-wide and why the economy has steadily declined in recent years.
Guild tagging was only meant to protect guilds from thieves, especially smaller guilds just starting out. I remember before we had it and theft was so rampant that some players would steal a fresh group drop and immediately leave the guild, going to the next guild, which soon became a victim as well.... I don't really think Hoof meant it to be used as it is today.
Maybe tagging itself should have an expiration time, so that guild management would have to think about if tagging certain items would be worth the cost a second or third time, especially if that cost increases each time, similarly to resetting level up points. Now, since Epics come as a tagged item, they would have to be considered differently than other gear, not sure how that might work.... but since those are probably as commonly shared as hunting setups, this would have to be considered as well.
Edited by BadPenny, 02 January 2019 - 04:43.