Wrong. Game is designed with downed state in mind.
While Full glass does more DPS it's also down more often. That's why it basically doesn't matter unless you allocate too much of your stat budget to defense.
I found that allocating 1/3 of it to defense with a ratio of 3:2 HP to def to compensate low base HP of Ele, lets you facetank pretty much anything out in the open wolrd (besides Gold & Purple borders) and eliminates the need to switch attunements entirely.
But combat isn't just easy due to survival issues. My class basically has only one DPS "stance" and that stance has only 3 buttons which have long cooldowns. So basically there isn't any decision making what to cast at a given point in time, because it is completely dictated by the cooldowns anyway. You just bomb out as many skills as possible and that's it. Place combo fields nicely so others can profit from them.
Ele DPS isn't hard in any shape or form. It's just a bit of awkward, having to switch stances all the time for maximum effect.
They probably thought Cleavage was sufficient. Guess they were wrong.