Guild Wars 2

But isn’t Exotic gear for levels 60-80? Is Ascended gear actually a dedicated level 80 gear? And any new gear for level 80s from here on out will be ascended level. I mean if this game didn’t have any dedicated level 80 gear, then it would make sense to have a dedicated level 80 gear, instead of having gear that one had for the last 20 levels as their highest gear. /shrug

Level 80 Exotic gear was already dedicated level 80 gear. If it had really been important that top-tier level 80 gear have its own text colour and name, they could have just gone through and renamed all the existing level 80 Exotic pieces to Ascended, without making any mechanical changes.