Yes, yes, yes. I messed around with my a lvl 93 Barb last night to get a feel for how the rare items would impact gearing now that thier potential stats have been buffed. I removed all of the toon's gear and bought a sword/shield that would have been issued at lvl one upon creating the character. I assigned skill points into the Barb's passive resistance/defence/sword mastery abilities and the rest into shield throw. I put stat points into about 125 str and 150 dex, the rest into vit. At this point I had a character that could effectively farm normal Plaguelands. The magic and rare gear that dropped was more than enough to get me started and I can see how I would eventually be able to move on to nightmare and then hell in this manner. The only real game changer item that you woul absolutely need to farm hell infernos would be an item with the chance to cast Amp damage on hit and there are several that can drop in nightmare Plaguelands. This process will of course take time but it is way easier now than it was before patch 3.2.

I think the gap has been sufficently bridged.