GF management doesn't understand +16 = money in their pocket. So instead they dance around it failing to realize it means with no reason to update gear, their is no reason to spend $ and buy diamonds.
Translation: The IS people still have no clue what they are doing.
While I agree that the IS people have no idea what they are doing for the most part (I agree with BB here that there should be a LOT more costume aggs available for me to purchase ALL the time, also ABL's should always be available, APS and RAE should be available all the time, etc), but there is no NEED for +16 stones and I hope they never make a full return to game. Lets get back to +12 being the normal. While I understand for those that have +16 gear there is no reason to upgrade gear right now, but eventually those people will either upgrade, or no longer be endgame. Period.
As for no reason to spend RL $ and buy diamonds right now, I disagree 100%. For a LONG time I went f2p, and felt no need to buy diamonds, however, recently there has been enough improvements in the way the game is being managed that I bought $100 worth of diamonds during the 150% diamond sale, and plan to spend that again during the next diamond sale to stock up (since I have pretty much went through the 8k diamonds between setting myself up, and gifts for guildies and friends (yes, I give things away for free - it's a game, it's meant to be fun so why not make everyone a little happier while I'm at it? I'm also still sitting on items given away from the GM event that I'm not using and giving away over time)).