I find the main benefit in gearing up (from blue to purple S2, from S2 to S4, etc) is that your armor value keeps increasing, which means rogues/warriors hurt less and less. Also increased resilience helps. Stunlock on 1 of your guys always hurts your burst damage potential... but if you can outlast the stunlock you can squeeze in some 4x lb/cl/shock or whatever. Just keep in mind they can typically only stun you for 50-60% of the time, and that's when they are really trying. Make that other 40% of the time count =P. Also if you scare them off with focus fire they won't be stunning you at all ^_^.