Thought Experiment concerning IO Levels

Before anyone tells me to "Take it to the Suggestions Forum," this is not a suggestion. I think the change is too drastic to make to an already-implemented system, but I'm interested in what others think.

As things stand in the game right now, there are two types of IOs: Commons and Set IOs. Common IOs exist from level 10 to 50, but only at multiples of 5. Set IOs each have a different range, but exist at every level from the minimum to the maximum.

If the original design had made all IOs exist only at the levels that are multiples of 5, how would that impact the game, both in terms of gameplay, and the markets?

These are the impacts I see:

-With less level variation, it would be easier to get a piece you wanted, since three bids would cover the same level range as 11 do now.
-Likewise, it would be easier to sell, since you are less likely to get that odd-levelled recipe nobody wants; it would round up or down like Commons do now.
-Slotting choices for exemplaring would change. Right now, if you plan on exemplaring to 30, you can slot as high as 33 and retain your set bonus. Under this system, You could only slot up to 30; level 35 would be too high to retain the bonuses. This would most likely have its largest impact on Zone PVPers, who want to eke every point they can out of their builds.

If this were changed now, the vast majority of existing IOs would have to be rounded up or down. Inevitably, you would end up with people who would want their slotted IOs to round the opposite way that they end up changing, and get upset because they now have to re-buy their entire build. I don't think this would be a well-received change, even if the consensus was that it was an improvement.

What do the market gurus think? What other pros and cons are there to this system? Is this how it should have been in the first place? If it were changed now, would it be an improvement, or a detriment?

When the system was very new, a few people had similar ideas. (I think I wanted "every three levels" for reasons that probably boiled down to novelty.)

It seems to me as if this suggestion is primarily driven by the fact that it's difficult to make realistic bids covering a wide spread of level ranges given the current system (e.g. 15 bids to cover a 15 level spread vs 3 bids if all IOs were by 5s).

Instead of changing IO level granularity (which has no chance of happening), what they need is a new "Advanced Bidding" optional interface for Wentworths that allows you to place a single bid and set a min level and max level for a range. So if you want e.g. a Celerity +Stealth and level doesn't matter, you set the range from 1-50 and you're done, and it only takes one transaction slot.

I think it produces general "ease of use", removes near-identical items ("Oh, a level 32 is zero point two percent worse than a level 33- that's a heck of a difference") and generally avoids having a lot of unnecessary crap lying around. Same reason they got rid of level 53 TO's, basically.

Given that the horse has left the barn, Advanced Bidding does put a band-aid over the... umm, mixed metaphor.