How is it disingenuous? If all you do is WQs and heroic dungeons you will get gear progression. As your ilvl increases your ilvl rewards from WQs increase so you are still gaining power. Likewise with M+, raiding, or PvPing as your only vice, you have a progression. Frankly there is no need for gear above the rewards of the content you are participating. If I was someone who ran LFR and did WQs only, I would not care that I don't have or can't get gear equivalent to those that raid mythic. Nor have I ever believed you should get gear equivalent to that if you are not doing the top end content.
Should there be a way to progress your character in more ways than raids. Yes, and it's been in WoW for a while now. You only want to quest? you can still get epics just a lower quality. Which is fair. Don't forget, I also advocate for transmog only gear and pets/mounts from mythic raids. I feel it should be about the skill of the group and not getting more powerful gear. Tune it as tight as possible for 20 people in heroic gear. 1 mistake means a wipe. There should be no brute forcing it. And I know that means my guild would never clear a Mythic raid ever again. So I am not some gear or mode elitist that doesn't want people to have gear. Nothing worng with getting gear equivalent to the content you play.