The **point** is that armor is a source of player power, and all player power in a loot game has to be retired (taken from the player) at some point so that you avoid power creep, while still being able to offer the player power to chase. 1. Retiring the armor keeps last years mods contained to last years armor. You can bring them forward on last year's raid armor, but that is still capped at 1360. However that year's raid armor won't be able to use the new raid mods, unless you go back and do the raids again, and reacquire it. (This years raid mods? This year's raid armor) 2. Retiring the armor keeps armor viable as loot items. Otherwise----once you get that perfectly rolled armor piece from a stat and elemental affinity standpoint----you've just rendered half the loot pool irrelevant. (Why do I need armor drops when I already have a perfectly rolled set) This is especially important with Bungie planning on adding Transmog to the game in a few months. Without some means to pry armor out of people's hands, you've just rendered all the game's armor **cosmetic**...and we're right back to where we were with vanilla D2. 3. Retiring the armor keeps this year's mods contained to this (Beyond Light) armor. TLDR: The whole point of a loot game is to keep the player base moving FORWARD, and exchanging the old gear for the new gear. Every good loot game is designed this way, and keeps you moving without calling attention to the fact that it is doing this. Bungie made the mistake of giving into a shooter gamer's mindset (once I have power, I get to keep it for the life of the game), only to find that it can't work with this kind of game. So they've had to go back and rebuild the game to be able to keep it working properly. Which means that it needs to discourage the very mindset you're giving voice to. To hold on to old stuff and just keep dragging it behind you through the game.

To force us to get new armor? That's more than half the loot not needed otherwise in a looter shooter.