I know, I have been suggesting this since before Dark Below came out. It's ludicrous to limit you to only the new set of raid gear to stay at max level. What if you want to mix-match raid sets? What if you don't like that specific raid gear? Before they made VOG gear obsolete, my favorite combo was Iron Banner shoulders and boots, with my Facade of The Hezen Lord helmet and Praxic Fire. I was still 30. I still love my Facade, but it's worthless now. It's not even 31 quality item. The only reason they didn't do everything this post outlines, is because they want even Raiders to have to start grinding again, in order to be max level. This is fine if you're doing this a year down the road, but 2 months after release? Wow, many people I played with didn't even complete their raid sets in that amount of time. They either just got energy or the same raid items they already had. Bungie's train of thought must have been, "So what if you ran the previous raids, it doesn't matter...why should you get to mix-match raid gear and keep your level? In fact, why should you even be allowed to be level 31? Heck, we'll demoralize you and sell level 31 vendor gear so that new comers can surpass your ability to cooperate and beat hard mode raids!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!! Sure, we could have made the vendor gear level 30, to match parity with your awesomeness, but nope...to hell with you!"