Things like this is why I'm always very wary before crafting anything this 'expensive' in terms of crafting materials, especially their ( H ) counterparts. For the MOST part only worthwhile to wear these items once you get the whole set for the extra little bit of bonus stat, it's just really unfortunate that this change has been made on one of the only parts of these sets that players would go out of their way to craft because it was an actual improvement for them. 5 extra char. weight, for the most part becomes pretty useless. Forgive the comparison to the real world, but if you paid money for software for a certain feature that set it apart from competitors and the feature was removed unannounced because it was 'too useful' to have, you're going to want a refund or at least kick up a fuss.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to have an NPC available to compensate raw material cost to anyone with these items pre-change, perhaps with a durability threshold so that any relatively high dura boots could get a refund as they hadn't been used to their potential yet, so obtained fairly recently. Or perhaps a date threshold.
Whatever the method, for me at least without a lot of hours to play the game, if I'd spent them working to get those boots I'd feel a bit like I'd been mugged off.
