If iron banner was endgame content it wouldn't be timegated. It's event content, stuff that periodically shows up and doesn't stay. The fact that you can't play iron banner on d1 is evidence of this. They could have easily left it in so everyone could keep playing it and even let you collect all armor versions along the way.
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Shattered Throne is time gated Raid challenges are time gated And the list goes on Not all content is going to be up at once dude and thats fine. When more stuff is up that puts more stress on their overall systems that they have in place. Just because its time gated doesn't mean its not endgame or pinnacle.
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With that logic I can understand your point, but then we'd have to say all powerful gear - the entirety of the game, is time gated. Which I guess, it loosely is. That said, Iron Banner is not time gated, and I think that's a misconception the other guy had. It's time limited. Time gates stifle progression in an activity by making you wait. Whereas time limited just means its available a short period of time.