First off topic: I didn't know there was a "thanks" limit in 24 hours. Otherwise you'd see a thanks from myself. >< Ah well.

Back to topic. More likely this was implemented because of the plat shields, and future pink items might or might not revolve around pink plat items again. Hopefully there will be "class" specific pink guns next chapter of SL.
e.g. Heavy Rifles for Commandos, Dual Pistols for Operatives and those Hand Blasters for Engineers.

If not, we may be looking at more class specific 'armor'.