mm-hm, better armor has always improved attack defence level since 1.0 but that big 40 we see actually used to be the light level and was tied to gear stats which is why its the big number we see on player I.D.'s its a holdover of a system no longer in use. its fascinating really, a lot of games have experience level and attack level separate. attack lvl has a cap until its raised and experience keeps going depending on how much you play. but because bungie rewrote part of the system instead of redoing it completely exp has a limit and doesn't tell anyone anything. i could store all my armor and weapons delete a guardian, make a new one bring it to level 40 without completing a single subclass and put on that stored high level gear. trust me i have done this more than once. (hunters hair started to look stupid)