The raid gear serves only two purposes at this point. 1. As a badge of honor that you've completed the VoG raid (multiple times) 2. To allow you to successfully complete the raid on Hard mode. No other activity in the game requires you to be level 30. Imo, Bungie never intended for you to just have ONE set of gear----which is why they tied the levelling system to your armor. I believe they expected us to compile an arsenal of various weapons and armor, then PICK which gear best served whatever mission we are to be going on. Expect to see other raid gears for future raids...and the raid difficulties going up. Also you wont' need to have completed the VoG in order to do the future raids, since the leaked level of the raids for the next expansion are 28. Which you can get to with Legendary gear +/- an exotic.