This comes from another thread where we were discussing the direction the game has gone in terms of time/currency investment in gear since the patch.

For new (and old!) player experience to be improved, there needs to be a way to experiment with different weapons before making a huge investment in them. (Note: this is all the more true with the current [woeful] state of mob variety/equipment balance, which is another related issue entirely.) I think this could be resolved by creating a new (instanced?) room in the training hall where you can go in, select the tier difficulty to emulate, select what monsters you'll encounter in an arena-like setting, and choose gear out of any gear in the game to equip inside that room.

Pros:
-->You now get to see what equips look like on you (answering the call for visible-before-equipping UI changes)

-->You get to experiment with weapons and armor in different situations so that you can make INTELLIGENT, INFORMED DECISIONS about what gear paths you'll go along.

-->This helps with player retention: I had a friend join and try out the game while I was on vacation--I came back to find out he had quit when he realized that his favorite equipment caps out at 2 and 3* instead of 5, and he was now days/weeks behind in a progression sense thanks to "bad" investments.

-->You can get free practice on different mob types to hone your skills. If party functionality was added, you could train with your guildies/dungeon group to work better as a team in a "safe" setting. Bad against Gremlins? Go in and get some practice on them. Teaching new people in your guild how to fight/herd jellies for JK runs? This is your ticket.

-->It's fun! Maybe you want to battle with friends who aren't "skilled" but you don't feel like going into a stressful T3 dungeon dive. So it adds some repeatable, "artificial" content to appease people who have already "seen most of the game," much in the way that PvP would (at least, as PvP advocates argue it would.)

-->A lot of the PvP systems already in place could potentially be modified for this functionality.

Cons:
-->I imagine this would take a lot of development resources, but I could be wrong.

--> It does take some of the "mystique" out of the game to be able to go in and equip anything. Part of the thrill of a weapon is equipping it for the first time. Personally, I don't really care about this con, but I know some players would feel strongly about it. And, to further counter this, it gives players a goal to look forward to. (Oh wow, I look awesome in X armor, I can't wait to be able to craft it. I'll keep running JK runs even though I'm bored of them because it'll be worth it when I can wear this!)

Thanks for reading! PS, I like parenthesis. :O