So after hitting 60, I was able to walk up to the Trading Post and go from ~480 to 572 gear score. I could have spent more, but for only 2,000 gold, you can skip a huge chunk of gear score once you hit 60.
Instead of being another form of progression, HWM now just serves to limit the quality of BoP items I personally can get.
So what is the point of this? Why should I grind HWM when I can grind for gold instead and purchase the gear I need?
You can. You can also spend time on crafting instead of farming WM and also get 600 gs gear. So feel free to do as you wish, sir.
And to answer why you should grind WM - you can do it to drop rare expedition gear on 600 GS, which gear have known and static perks and stats, for example Life Staff from Lazarus with 600 GS is probably the best item in it’s category and is easier to acquire than rolling crafts or dropping random Life Staffs, but you need to push your WM on it to 590.