You can get the tier 1 items for any race as low level drops; most of them are 1s max at the trading post. I haven’t seen tier 2 as drops, but some of the tier 3 items I’ve seen. I got the Adamant Shield (tier 3 Charr shield) in Fields of Ruin. That’s 63k worth of karma in one drop.
I don’t think this is intended. Why would anyone ever spend 9,800 karma on tier 1 when they could buy the same for 1s?
LE: The Seraph rifle is given as a quest reward for Order of Whispers…