[_ysng]

" The game was also balanced around the auction house - meaning fewer high quality items drop, with the belief being that you're selling those few high quality items & kitting yourself out from the auction house."

AFAIK, Blizzard collects interest on each real money transaction, so if they're optimizing for maximization of that interest (I'm assuming they do) they aren't minimizing occurrence of the rarest of the items. They should behave like diamond cartel...