Proof gear doesnt mean anything.

[Grendeel]

 I guild decided to do yogg with only blue level gear.   

http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/08/ungeared.html

Pretty much proves gear shouldnt be an issue this day and age of warcraft

[Air]

Read the comments.  One of there player's specifically stated that they had just did vezax hard mode on 25 man.  And that they don't do 10 man's much anymore as they are more focused on 25 mans now.  Goes to show that experience is more important than gear.

[Grendeel]

Read the comments. 

Not really sure why you want me to read the comments

[Shadowwolf]

While I've always said similar things, I do believe that in fairness however, gear while not making it a necessity to kill bosses, makes it easier. It goes along the lines of it is very possible to steer a car with your feet if you wanted to or had to, but it would be a whole lot easier to do it with your hands. Looking at the logs they posted, while they did kill the bosses, on a lot of them, they barely made the enrage timers. Yogg included, they had roughly 30sec to spare on the kill list for him. I think it is a very good example of how much experience plays into things more so than gear does but again, gear being good also provides a nice mistake buffer to fall back on should things not go well. Being they've done these fights on 25 in hard mode many times, they know the fights in and out and im sure know their classes on those fights in and out as well as could be giving them a bit of an advantage.

Blizz knows gear doesnt mean all that either with achievements like this in the game Herald of the Titans

I think the biggest issue is there are SOOOOO many people out there in PUGs who just dont know how to properly play their class and slide through doing the minimum either intentionally or unintentionally being carried through that having good gear makes them on par to a point with a competent and good player in less fantastic gear. The problem is being able to tell the difference between those kinds of players is nearly impossible without actually allowing them to play first.