Yes I have, and pretty much any modern game worth its salt knows that balancing progress around incredibly tilted drop rates for the entire game doesn't fly. In a lot of MMOs super rare random drops are balanced either by being able to trade the items, or by making the items entirely optional with no effect on gameplay. In cases where something is untradable but only comes a drop it's usually not that rare in the first place.
The fact that you look at randomly getting something as a trophy or accomplishment doesn't make any sense to me. Unless you're also the kind of person who would argue that winning the lottery because they bought more tickets makes someone more "hardcore" at it than someone else. And I'm not saying people can't be entitled and childish about it, I'm just wondering why wanting something other than random chance to determine core progression is somehow entitled or "casual".
That said, I'm not against purely random drops being in the game for optional minmaxing or gimmick stuff, but in terms of just keeping your chin above the bar, no, absolutely not. You call it people acting entitled... but I'd argue that people ARE entitled to being able to equip their characters at the basic level of whatever the current power creep is it just by playing the game normally. Obviously, people shouldn't expect to just be allowed to jump into expert groups when they can't carry their own weight. I actually think your idea for locking gear for expert blocks isn't enough, but I'm going on a tangent.
Basically I think there should be a mix of raw drops, and easy to acquired baseline gear, and I'm not sure why you think only having random drops would be a good thing for anyone, or why having measurable progress on something is bad.
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