I've been in raids where better geared mages were being outdpsed by not-so-well-geared mages. Hell, I've even seen a lock in 4/8 Tier 1 and he was below the MT and OT in dps charts! How the fark that happened, idk... maybe he was afk half the time or watever.

End of the day, IMHO its not how GEARED you are, its how GOOD you are!