Why is Engineering gear free now?

[Melrak]

Every mage warlock and priest is walking around with the invulnerability belt and rocket helm + rocket boots.

[Cube]

need

[Wamboye]

Belt and rocket helm were always free, you can craft them so they only require Engi profession. However the rocket boots are soulbound so they aren't supposed to be free, and they have been nerfed for BGs (you drop the flag if you're using rocketboots as flag carrier). Maybe you just encountered some alts who did a few MGT runs/QD daily quests, I can't tell you.