Aye, excusing gear as replicas is pretty common. My ex-Flames guy has an exceptionally-crafted axe that was made to look like the Bravura, and my miqo'te (main) wears a set of armor that just looks like the wyrm set, and later went out and commissioned a replica of the Gae Bolg. His WAR set is a bit trickier, as in the WAR quests, Curious Gorge states that he wants to teach the WAR arts again, and implies that he'll eventually do that
I play R'tahz's WAR training as though he got that training from Gorge because Gorge has started training marauders, so the WAR armor he wears is still a replica of the ancient raiments, but was given to him by Gorge.
Chris Ganale | R'tahz Tia | Yuuna Akashi | Chao Lingshen | Seno Nakakami | L'dran Cresnoble | Garon Crayson