Without disrespect, i dislike your idea Konrax, but here's my 2 cents.
At the moment, for high generation people, it is to easy to retire and heirloom an item. Pre-patch, even if you played your ARs off, you could only retire once a week, and retirement had a cost. This kind of system should be put back in. I think we should keep the xp//gold ratio we have at the moment, but limit the rate at which people can retire. Let's say once per 10 days. That way, the people who have been playing for a long time retain their advantages, without being able to spam the heirlooming process.
As for good equipment, it should be like Sunday (or Church) clothing. Things that are nice and that you only wear on occasions. (These occasions being High multipliers, ie: x4-x5) Furthermore, that black plate you wear once in a x5 bluemoon should help your team maintain that x5 longer.
I say this because you don't often see people over lvl 30, and the retirement process keeps it that way (since leveling becomes sooooo long afterwards). Furthermore, the heirloomed items don't add that much of a bonus, and if I'm not mistaken, you can't even use these items in strategus.
In short, i think that in order to retire and land a heirloom, you should A) get to lvl 31, maybe B) pay a heirlooming fee (that get's higher/ generation and by level of the item (getting an item to be masterwork should cost more than getting it to be fine)), and C) wait 10 days between each heirloomed retirement.
