Before someone starts comparing random blue items to raid epics, here's my post about stat budgets in response to Hagson:
Item level dictates how many and how much of certain stats are allowed to be on an item. It is not a magical number that determines whether or not an item is good.
The comparison between the green healing wand and Wand of Qiraji Nobility is completely nonsensical. You're not even comparing it to a healing wand. You're comparing a healing item to a DPS item. That's like saying it's crazy that Azuresong Mageblade (ilvl 71) has less healing than Jin'do's hexxer (ilvl 66) when Azuresong Mageblade has damage AND healing. Both of the items have spell crit and int/stam budgeted also.
Sartura's Might might be a tiny upgrade in your eyes, but it is still an upgrade. Because of the higher item level, it is allowed to have higher healing, mp5, AND additional Stam/Int to boot.
Soulseeker has 20 spell penetration budgeted onto it, making it less valuable in PvE situations than Wraith Blade.
DFT has stat points allocated into dodge and therefore isn't a pure DPS trinket, but the amount of stats budgeted onto it (thanks to its high item level) still outweighs Hand of Justice's in pure DPS. This goes to show that even scaling items like HoJ have their limits.
Empyrean Demolisher vs Gressil is a case of 2 melee weapons. ED has no stats budgeted onto it, so all of its power is going to be budgeted into its DPS and proc. This means that the proc of ED should be about as strong as a 66 item level weapon with pure Attack Power allocated onto it. ED's proc, similar to Hand of Justice's proc, is extremely valuable in that it scales with your gear, though, so it makes sense for Empyrean Demolisher and HoJ to be better than any other weapon/trinket with the same item level and even items with slightly higher item level. This is similar to what I explained in the DFT vs HoJ situation. For ED to be better than an item from the end game boss with ludicrously high item level is nonsense.
Anyway, that's how item level works and has always worked throughout WoW. Blizzard was notoriously shit at itemizing things in vanilla, but the point still stands. The timing of the change is unfortunate to the guilds who spent time and energy farming this item, and perhaps the item should wait to be changed until after the Naxxramas progression race ends. But any defense on this item's absurd uptime and strength would have to be met with accusations of bias.
