This also should help:
* The granularity of the item levels has been cut in half, which should be a very good thing for players who have been thinking the individual increments were too small. Basically the balance is still the same as it ever was, but rather than there being a max of 50 item levels, there is now a max of 25, and you progress through them half as fast. But level 25 is the same as level 50 used to be, and level 10 now is like level 20 was before, etc.
** As a part of this, this makes it so that you actually will stay on a given item level at least for a few missions, rather than constantly having item levels just fly past you before you can really stay there long.
** This is easy to change back if the adjustment is not popular, but we hope you'll like it.