Whould you rather equip gear that you like, or gear that is rare?

I agree with this. It can be the rarest thing in the world, but if I don't like it, rarity is beyond irrelevant.

Does it really matter? What if I like rare gear? I win on both.

That might be true for a newly-minted grad who likely had the benefit of lower standards anyway. After you have been employed in the world for awhile, even a small while, it's your accomplishments as an employee that matter most--not the school. In that sense, this fellow is entirely correct. His hard work would result in greater knowledge which would be applied in the work environment and allow him to be a better employee. At mid-career a degree amounts to a union card that allows you to work in your profession and nobody much cares where you went to school.

I can attest to this with personal experience as a hiring manager. I would not look twice at a new graduate from San Jose State University, for example, because the school is entirely online and they will admit anyone. It's so bad that they are flooding the market with graduates. A graduate from the University of Washington, however, is a different matter because they only admit a third of their applicants. I know their students have been through a tough test to even get in, much less graduate.

HOWEVER (and this is where it changes), if the graduate has been working in the field, I hardly look at the school. Instead, I call their employers for references and look at their work experience. What have they done? What projects have they managed? Can they write grants or generate revenue? How many people and what departments have they supervised? That's vastly more important to a hiring authority than the school they went to a decade or more ago. Things are moving so fast that their education is out of date anyway.

Except in cases like Harvard, where the social connections you make are as important as your academic studies, the actual school has little bearing on a prospective mid-career employee's chances for getting hired.

Then your perception of "useful" (which is as subjective as "pretty" or just about any other adjective) is what causes you to like it.

Rare gear has nothing to do with role playing. Anyone can claim anything IC and there is no way, IC, to verify their claims. So, outlandish (from an IC standpoint) claims like "You can tell I'm the terror of Makeb by the rare lightsaber I have" (and I just made that up as an example) mean nothing, IC, other than leading people to suspect, IC, that the claimant is delusional.

IC.

You see?

Always wear what I like. Sometimes that's a bit pricier (love love love the relaxed vestments top on my sage and someday "Sarie the Pure" needs a white saber crystal ) sometimes it's quite cheap (I pair it with a cheap crafted low-level skirt, the slave hands/feet, common cartel wrists and lowbie crafted headpiece). I find in many cases I like the early, simpler stuff a lot better than I like "endgame" stuff, which generally has stupid things going on with the shoulders and is just generally over the top.

For me, the fun is more about mix and matching from different sets to get a unique look. Credits seem very easy to come by with a modicum of effort, so even the "rare" stuff is fairly easily obtainable without being a GTN genius or buying cartel stuff to sell there.

Now if anyone can tell me if there's a moddable version of that white Agent coat you get before leaving Hutta ... I'd be grateful.

This sorta segues into the long-standing request that there be a mechanism added to allow non-moddable gear to be turned into a moddable shell.

Something I too would love to happen.

As noted many, many times by many people over many months, how often do we see some piece of armor that looks great but is a level 19 green, and thus relegated to "fleet wear?"

Gold Scalene is actually a better set to have over something like Valiant Jedi. Reason is Gold Scalene is a 7 piece set, while Valiant Jedi is a 6 piece set. If you bought the full scalene when it was on the CM, or you buy the complete set now from the GTN and you add it to collections you save yourself the trouble of having to hunt down helms hehe. Of course its not like helms are expensive on the GTN anyways. On my toons with healer comps that i hate, i put them in gold scalene. Quinn? Doctor Lokin? pfft dont care for em, put em in full Scalene. Mako? put her in a heartless set with Frogdog helm.

But back to the OP...i dont care if the look i chose is one of a kind and unique, or if a lot of people also wear it, i will wear it if i like it. In WoW i have a bunch of old gear that i earned when the content was relevant and i use that for my appearance now. It makes no difference to me that people can now solo the same content i did years ago with a raid. I still like the way it looks so i still wear it. And on another toon (my rogue) i never raided tier 2 content back in the day, but nowadays i will farm up the full set of tier 2 because i like how that looks. I dont feel embarrassed or anything knowing that didnt earn it when the content was relevant. And some random person coming up saying 'blah blah you didnt earn that gear back then you dont deserve it' isnt going to change my mind either.

I suppose this amounts to playing Dictionary Definitions, but I would maintain that finding something "useful" is not only not subjective; it is nowhere near the term "like." As an example, I "like" the Star Trek USS Enterprise speeder. It's attractive. The colors are nice. I always notice them when they fly on by. (OK. It's also gaudy.) But I don't find it "useful," primarily because they are expensive, and buying one would take away credits I could use for other things that are clearly "useful" in the game, such as upgraded mods.

That's an objective measurement, not a subjective one. I can show anyone the math. The credits needed to buy the fancy speeder can buy X mods which are worth Y HP at Level Z, which makes your character stronger and more capable of leveling up. In fact, a full set of mods at Level 30 something is worth about 25% more HP than not having them, allowing you to go from 6k HP to 8K HP, which amounts to several levels. (Collected Green Gear vs. Orange Gear with full mods) It my level of expertise (which is not great) this amounts to winning boss fights or losing them.

Now what does that fancy speeder get me? It goes no faster than the plain vanilla adaptive speeder I got for nearly free in the $5 digital upgrade pack. it doesn't help me level up at all. It does not help me in the game. It, like a lot of Cartel Market stuff, is fluff. I may like it, but it's neither useful nor necessary.

The world is not black and white. There are not just two categories: like and rare. I can't imagine WHY you want to shoe horn "useful" into your version of "like." I do not accept that as logical, even a little bit, and I don't think you have even a weak case for asserting that. It's nonsensical.

Yes, yes. I forgot about the helmet. (sigh) Let me rephrase that. ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, i.e.: Comparing six piece adaptive armor to other six piece adaptive armor, it doesn't matter which set you use because they all take the same mods anyway, therefore it makes some sense to buy a cheaper set to save your credits for buying something useful, like, you know, mods. OK?