I'm responding to
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=726221
players have been facing off against the Borg for many months in order to obtain gear such as the Mark XII Very Rare MACO, Omega Force and Honor Guard sets.
It took me about a week of perseverance to get a full set of Mk XII MACO gear for the ground while merely pugging it. At no point did I run the with a team put together specifically to get the loot. Pugs were frustrating, but sufficient. When I actually look at how many times my pugs managed to actually complete the missions... It took 3 successful runs of Infected, 5 successful runs of Khitomer, and 3 successful runs of Cure.
The only thing I find truly frustrating is getting Infected Ground Elite optional. Every time I've been in a group that's managed to do everything right, with nobody crossing the lines, everything going extremely fast, it fails for no freaking reason. The failure occurs despite there being both time on the clock and nobody crossing the lines. I've got the optional for the other two completed already.
That said, I do approve of the new system. It looks like it's a lot more fair and considerably better than the current system.