Most games nowadays have removed the option to lose your items while upgrading. That is because destroying something a player invested time is a terrible game design, and yet why did dbo do it?
DBO was a dying f2p game, yep. Everyone knew DBO(especially netmarble) would die in just a matter of time. It didnt have enough mechanics to be competitive in the korean mmo market. So the game was designed around making the most amount of money possible. That means the game had to be frustrating for the players, so they had to invest a lot of money to be competitive.So NTL had no option but create the break system and the box systems.
DBOG won't need that. There is no need to use those p2w mechanics. Boxes were needed because:
1 - droping gears with the stats you want was impossible
2 - Even if you drop them , there is a big chance they will break while upgrading.
So you'd do your upgrade in trash items and use the boxes to get the most desired stats. Meaning the devs would have a really hard time giving new gears to content with boxes around to mess that up.
Basically what happens when you have a break system and a box system:
1- the devs release new content with amazing new gear for players to get
2 - the players won't ever touch that content because they need +15 gears and it a lot smart to get trash gears from that content ( which you'd need to do it very little for that) and use the boxes to change the stats.
3 - that way the players would never have to drop the gear they want.
4 - The economy becomes dependent on those boxes, trash becomes gold and good +0 itens are never sold for being too expensive.
I do believe DBOG can survive very easilly with everything else dbo can offer in the cash store - DOGIs, inventory expanse , Dash flight , Fast Vehicles( make then faster then flight) ,reset books, reset names, reset guild names and so on.