Another alternative would be powerful gear through maxed level crafting skills. But of course raw materials should be the finest ones to prevent obtaining them too easily, like some rare boss drop requirements along with other raw materials. That would work same way than gear drops straight from the creature but also requires extremely skilled craftsman to create them.
Since there is Heroic armor/weps, there should be Masterwork gear for the top level crafted gear. This would be just as good, if not better than the already rare Heroic gear.
Or another alternative would be.... With the use of heroic gear and maxed crafting, you combine the two to make some extremly powerful gear. This would balance it out because the heroic gear is rare, then getting maxed in crafting profession would be just as rare because leveling takes ages 