There are pages and pages of items(armor,weapons, mounts, crystals, decorations, flairs, tunings) that are unobtainable unless you unlock it via legacy. Some, if not most, come from cartel packs that are no longer in circulation making it extremely difficult to acquire. Remove that restriction and allow the item to be purchasable regardless if you unlocked it or not. Edited January 5, 2019 by TonyTricicolo

They already allow you to get items from older packs that don't exist. The Ultimate pack can drop any item from any pack that ever came out in game. Each day the daily sale contains a random item and could be from an older pack. Each week the items under featured change and may include options from older packs. Also at least once a year during the summer, they have the summer sale where they put up almost every item from the collections available for direct purchase which usually lasts about a month.

 

So there are several options already. I doubt we would see them remove ultimate packs and just see them sell everything direct. Main reason is one it's a money maker for them and two some players buy those packs, open them, then sell the contents on the GTN for a lot of credits. Buying for example one hypercrate @ 5400cc contains 30 packs each that gives 4 items, for a total of 120 items.

 

Depending on what drops, you may get far more items that you would simply not get just for spending 5400 coins on direct purchase. I've gotten well over 10,000cc worth of items or more from a single hyper crate that I turn around and sell un-needed stuff on the GTN for crap ton of credits.

 

I can then use said credits to buy the items from the GTN that I'm missing or don't have. I've maxed out many of my collections that way. Tunnings, Titles, Toys, Pets, etc I've maxed out what I can get from this method. The items I'm mainly missing are promo items which unfortunately I wish they would just direct sale. Ones that came with older cartel coin card purchases, ones that were from cantina events, or logging in during specific times, etc I've missed but that's about it.

Nice thorough explanation.

Ultimate crates also drop direct sale items as well, like the Cybernetic Veractyl mount and Crimson Talon Armor set. (No idea if they were ever in any cartel packs or not, I had the impression that crimson talon at least was something new)

Yea, All I really wanted was the Merciless Seeker armor set. I missed out when it was on sale. Now I'm opening a **** ton of Ultimate Packs with the hope I'm lucky enough to get one from the RNG gods.

Be sure to keep an eye on the GTN as well, someone else might have it up for sale