My understanding of vet rewards is that they are a way to say "thank you" from the corporate/ dev side to the players for continued years of loyalty. This is a premise that at times seems lost. It seems to me that what should be important is taking a moment each year to say thanks. Or don't, I'm OK with that too. We say thanks by continued subscriptions and purchases, if EA/ Mythic/ Dev want to say thanks, rewards should be as unrestrictive as possible. I can accept the basis of years of play having meaning, but only because rewards can actually serve as an incentive for times to come. Remember this is the third time reward choices have lagged behind account ages, once everyone was given an additional pick, this seems to mark the second time no additional picks were provided. We'll have to see, we're not at the public release 11th anniversary quite yet. It actually does irritate me when items are backdated and our picks are already expended. It takes the sincere "you're welcome" out of the potentially sincere "thank you." No vet reward creates any form of play imbalance. Keep them or sell them, again, what difference does it really make? Who cares that a player vendor may sell a year 1 reward for less than a year 11 reward - it has absolutely nothing to do with EA saying thanks to an 11 year player. And while I'm ranting, random rewards that can't be redeeded - please
My view is 1) when pub 56 hits, give out an additional pick or two to everyone. 2) Establish an NPC that allows players to turn in any vet reward and claim another reward that the player is qualified to receive.
It seems no more complicated than that.
Oh, and for anyone caring to speculate about 11/12 year rewards, Kurgan posted a spoiler alert back in early July that seems to point to what these rewards may be, it's still in the database somewhere!