I agree to everything exept on this "Defense on Secmathian/Elga Sets and Paris Wings: The group generally agreed that the defense on Secmathian/Elga set pieces and Paris Wings is too high and should be lowered". It shoulnt be cuz it's a special set like bone dragon,. And this is very delicate because it affects giant amounts of IM being spent. And what do you think will happen if your big time IM buyers quit (your source of income)? Do you think the non-IM players will do? No matter how much you say this game is " free to play" it still needs funding. I tell you I know a few big time IM spenders ready to quit if this specific nerf if passed. Just saying, peace out.
To counter that, I would note that I'm pretty familiar with most of the players who were involved in this discussion and pretty much all of them fall into one of two categories: 1) They're big IM spenders, or 2) They never buy IM and simply do surveys to get all of their IM. None of them, in either category, really disagreed that these sets or the wings should have their defense lowered, IIRC.
That's not to say that they're right and the others you mention are wrong. I can understand their concerns; I've spent a considerable amount of IM on my Secmathian set, myself -- 3 of the pieces are +20. But we're not necessarily talking about nerfing the defense to the point where the IM everyone spent feels wasted. Rather, just adjusting it so that it's a bit more reasonable, specifically with regards to the Paris Wings, which I believe were the main concern. 8K+ defense from one piece of armor is just silly at this point in the game's progression, IMO.
Personally, I feel that any defense beyond 12K or so is just a luxury in PvP and really won't do much for you b/c at that point, the only time you're taking serious damage is when opponents are hitting you with critical hits. As for PvE, sure, extra defense helps in the case of the Elga fight, but if you learn Elga's attack patterns and use your skill wisely, you (usually) won't be taking enough damage for your defense to be a big issue -- not to mention, several of Elga's attacks seem specifically designed to 1-hit KO you regardless of your defense and/or health.
I think the issue raised both during this discussion and the last that was held is that exorbitantly high defense is a problem in the game in general. Perhaps the best solution would simply be to reconfigure the defense values on ALL equipment, lowering it but keeping everything on more or less the same scale it's on now. That way, the money invested on equips would still provide the same return on investment in a relative sense.
But again, it's all just conjecture and debate at this point. I'm glad you've shared this feedback, and my opinion or the opinions of the others from the meeting certainly are not the only opinions to be had on these issues -- that's why I specifically asked the GMs if I could take notes on the meeting and share the info with everyone else here on the forums. If you could encourage some of the players you have mentioned to comment here with further feedback, perhaps they could offer more creative solutions to the current attack-defense issue, if they agree that one exists.