A while back Gevlon said that the (then) upcoming change in badges to justice points was very normal and welcome because now everyone can get “l337” gear. Most people did not like it since it “robbed” them of the opportunity to show off their “skillz” by having said items, but Gevlon welcomed it since everyone should be able to get it.

I think he missed the point. Blizzard is not interested in fairness or they would have done that in the first place. If that does not convince you, then look at the patch notes where it clearly states that new (level 85) heroic dungeons will, once again, drop badges (of Valor).

So Blizzard did not see the light, badges and “l337” gear from them only will be once again a part of the gameplay. So why did it change it now? What changed?

There is only one reasonable explanation and it was touched upon by many blogs. In summary, people were wondering how would Blizzard bridge the gap between newly leveled characters and high end raiders dressed accordingly. A newly leveled 80 character would put out about 1.5k to 2k dps. A high end raider can put out 8k easily. So what kind of content should Blizzard design to service both groups? If it caters to the newly leveled it will make raiders bored and simply steamroll through the content. If it caters to the raiders it would make content impossible for newly leveled characters to handle it.

So here come the Justice Points system. It takes just a few runs to acquire enough JP to raise your character to a respectable performance. New content will drop gear that is only worse than current highest level heroics. Look it up, wowhead has an early Cata database and green quality items dropping from new mobs are incredibly powerful. That only supports my hypothesis. Early levels of monsters will be easily killed by raiders but loot will redress them in green to begin the harder work ahead. New lvl80 characters will go to a mini heroic farm with their friends and / or guild for a day or two and be totally ready for Cata mobs, upon which time they too will dress with the new green loot and be on par with everyone else.

End of story, JP is here to facilitate the transition to Cataclysm monsters. Badges are not gone, Blizzard is not stupid, badges are the only way to keep players farming.