The thing is, there is no way to change that without making the game feel stale. GW2 is the best example. They try to make horizontal progression and let me tell you, i didn't stick around.
I could agree with one thing wich is how WoW resets the gear progression with every tier. I am not a fan of that. TBC did it best imo. There were some upgrades that would help you catch up into the raid progression but you couldn't get a full gear set with badges. You had to progress through the tiers in order. With that said, i doubt they will ever do that again, cause it's difficult to explain to clueless suits why it works.