Well, u can always go back to classic if the current system doesnt suit you but about the corrupted gear: u can take it to MOTHER in the chamber of heart and cleanse it for 5 corrupted mementos and wear it as normal.
Oh and @Droktar, you can get the corrupted momentos for cleansing corruption by doing certain content, the minor visions in the zones you do 8.3 dailies in, for example.
It’s a risk vs reward system, dont want it? Cleanse it.
I find it a bit funny how the reason given in scrapping reforging was that “people couldnt just wear the upgrades they got from clearing content immediately” and now people need to wait weeks for them to be able to use their upgrades.
…or downgrade it at an NPC, going through beats not unlike reforging.
This is the entire questline. As others have pointed out it takes some time to unlock. The first time I didn’t time it but on alts with the skips it was around two hours.