BE legs are perfect for farming when you couldn't be bothered to waste mana FDing off unwanted adds or wasting the timing killing them. It frees up 1 or more spell slots too. The real selling point is no recast delay, which means less now that SKs have 2 FDs, but if you just want to plow through weakling mobs to spawn nameds, it's so easy to use BE instead.
That's what's great about classic EQ. It's situational and ambiguous enough even when it comes to min/max. 2 decades later and players are still debating over the merits of innate regen or FSI. Most players hate night blindness, yet some think it adds to the immersiveness of the world. AFAIK cloak of falling stars is considered bis, but the stamina from cloak of confusion isn't wasted on a monk, even if already over 205, because they will often see their buffs stripped when pulling targets. So it makes sense to purchase that PoM set of cards instead of blowing tons of dkp on the other, esp if working on boosting stats in other slots. The list of examples goes on.
To most endgame raiders, the SK epic is mediocre at best, esp when compared to something like vulak axe. But to anyone interested strictly on solo/duo/group content, the proc adds so much to their survivability and couples well with heals over time, not to mention other dots. Similar things could be said about Greenmist. If you duo with a shaman and don't have epic (or want the benefit of shield AC), it is a perfectly good option. Similarly, if you don't have yeli sword and/or narandi crown, blood ember will go a long way towards conserving mana. It does mean adjusting to the cast times, but therein lies the fun of getting the most out of the class and what it has available to it. Once you're rolling in plat/dkp and can splurge, the better, more expensive items will make what you were doing before seem like lots of extra work for a slight benefit, but this is the nature of progression. If you skip to the end thanks to ectunnel friends or rmt, you miss all of the nuance between 1 and 60.
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