Empress's Minions drop Lv.140 equips.

No, I understand that, but I'm talking about people who sell the stuff right off the bat and the only way your group can get "upgraded" is by buying it off your own group for retail.
I mean back when people did full on HT group runs for mastery books, it was more or less a "point" system whatnot, but nowadays, if MW30 drops from HT and someone in your group needs it, they need to either buy it for retail price from their group or they're SoL until Chaos comes out, unless they can solo HT on a regular basis.

I'm probably just being nostalgic in where everyone had an equal shot at getting stuff instead of only the richest of the rich getting first crack at it.

As has been pointed out: in both instances, you are paying to get the equips.
In one instance, you pay directly; in the other, you are giving up potential profit in exchange for what you need.
There's no real difference.

Your last sentence is just ridiculous. The only people getting the 'first crack' at this boss are the richest of the rich. People like myself won't scratch Pink Bean, let alone Cygnus, anytime in the near future.

That's where the convo pretty much went. They plan on selling the drops from day 1 of them downing the CE and/or her subordinate adds, and if people want the 140 equips as an "upgrade", they're forced to buy it off their own group.

You know why they're planning that?
Because they'd be utter morons to do anything else.

Why would they be morons?
Two reasons:
- Their current equips.
- Supply and demand.

Here's the deal:
We've already established that only the richest-of-the-rich will be killing for these equips in a 'timely' manner.
These players tend to have near-perfect, though undoubtably godly, equips that are decked out with %-(primary stat), %-Ignore Def, %-Boss Damage, etc.

Now, let's say the bosses drop a weapon that matches one of the runner's class.
They have two options:
a) Replace their current weapon with it.
b) Sell it.

Let's say they want to go with option (a), keeping it:
They now have a weapon that has better base stats than anything they could have gotten previously.
Of course, it's still useless as it is since their current weapon is undoubtedly amazingly scrolled.
If it's a 2H Weapon, they now get to spend hundreds of millions scrolling it with Pinks and White Scrolls.
If it's a 1H Weapon, well, good pineappleing luck.

Let's say though, that you do have the means to scroll it perfectly. Guess what?
It still doesn't have Potential, and, even if you perfect a 140 weapon, it'll be subpar without Potential that at least matches what's on your current weapon.
...unfortunately, to even get lines on it, you're going to take a 10% risk of blowing it to hell.
Weapon gone. Run wasted.

Now let's take a look at option (b), selling it:
These equips will be brand-spanking new, and there likely will be no others on the market.
Rarity alone will easily make it worth 2bil+.
So you sell it and take the 2 billion; that's a lot of mesos that can easily be turned into NX or otherwise invested.

Now, you'll likely continue to go on runs with your group, and ya'll will get more and more 140 equips.
As you, and other groups, continue to run, more and more equips start entering the market.
Demand sticks as supply inflates, slowly lowering the price.

Eventually, that equip that you got a few months before will be half the starting price or less.
Now is when you buy one for yourself and use all the money you earned from your runs to ensure that your sexy 140 set beats out what you had before.

It's never worth it to switch to a new equipment set early.