Shiny Prizes

[Bolty]

I guess they have to save something for the expansion.

Not quite. Blizzard "blue" posts have already made clear that they like the current system, where the random number generator can generate great items and it can generate trash, even for Legendaries. There's no golden "best item" that will ever exist in Diablo III, which is a great thing.

Once you add uniques or super-special items to the game that are clearly the best, the entire game devolves into getting those particular items. Once you do, your character is then "perfect" and the incentive to play it lessens greatly. This made a little more sense in the Diablo II world, where you could "perfect" your character but still have a lot of playtime to get them to level 99. I still thought it was poor implementation back then, though, and advised Blizzard against it to no avail. What keeps people playing in the end is trying to get that extra 0.5% of gear power...

I saw a forum post somewhere where someone calculated that for a particular Legendary item, there were something on the order of 12 quadrillion possible combinations of stats that could be generated. You'll never, ever have a "perfect" (meaning, max of every possible stat) set of gear for a character in Diablo III. Ever. Well, maybe if you have thousands of real-life dollars to spend on the AH to buy every single perfect item ever placed on there, but consider how valuable those would be. I can't even imagine; it would be like winning the lottery if a "perfect" item ever dropped, once the playerbase matures to the point where everyone is seeking those extra 0.5% better items.

The current system makes getting a perfect Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac from Diablo 1 look like a trivial exercise. Such an item would be pitifully common compared to a perfect high-end Diablo III Legendary or Rare.