Yesterday when I was browsing GTN I noticed that it's not only the Cartel Market pre-made crystals that are having this issue but also some of the standard crafted colour crystals (most likely crafted prior to the patch). Which basically means that unless you're an artificer there is no way to get level-appropriate temporary crystals to play with.
I have also noticed that most barrel and hilt modifications have been flagged as artifacts as well.
Tuesday patch I hear, if it's an intended feature expect lots of people to leave swtor. EA, there's only so far you can go to push people for money...
Given that they've said they're investigating the issue, I honestly doubt it's an intended feature.
Just copying and pasting what I had posted earlier yesterday without seeing this thread.
After updating my game to 4.0 I went to look onto my character (and my companions) character sheet where you can see all equipped gear. Obviously because of the update all of my companions gear was sent to me via in-game mail. When wanting to re-equip some armor pieces my game would give me an error stating I cannot re-equip the items because I need equipment authorization. That should not be what it says, it should say, "previously authorized by subscription" like some of my other gear does, but all of my "artifact" gear that was equipped to my companions now says that.
On my personal character, I have a color crystal in my saber, that says "previously authorized by subscription". However, my Focus generator slot with the same color crystal stated that my stats would not count because I need equipment authorization to use it.
