For precedent, see someone else's thread
Are Sol Ro quest items dropping? in which I expressed concern that people were gathering up Sol Ro quest items that would be deleted. I asked, "How likely are they to delete all the Sol Ro quest items in people’s bank/inventory right before Sol Ro comes out?" and these were the responses:
"I would say unlikely. If they were game breaking items that gave a severe advantage for competitive content then maybe. But most of the the Sol Ro items are mid-game stuff or utility, so no reason to waste the time and energy."
"extremely unlikely"
"items are being removed" (dingdingding)
"I would think twice before hoarding these. DELETE FROM statements in MySQL are not hard." -Dolalin (generally believe whatever this guy says btw)
"They won't delete them, unless they plan on deleting all the kunark epic drops as well that were not droppable in classic era. And that would cause a fucking shitroar."
And so it has. That's why I'm trying to warn people now! Be wary of spending hours or DKP on bard backbones...and any other epic items that may have been left in. I mean, loot rots, but just remember what might happen to them. I don't want people to be sad.