So you want people to play the game to find gear.......

Cool,

How about each NPC ranging from mobs to world bosses and from dungeon NPC's to mini bosses to bosses award either a part of a token or whole token.

Partial tokens can be crafted into whole tokens

With a token you can place an bind on pick up time item in a guild trader or purchase a bind on pick up time out of the guild trader or trade to another player as long as you both have tokens

Cap the number of tokens you can hold or use in week.

This makes you play the game, allows you to trade or sell an item you otherwise would deconstruct.

More importantly you have to play the game to earn them and can still share and profit.