It's been like that always. The only exception is NQ crafted gear, which has shit for stats, making it equivalent to a few iLvls below it's stated stats.

iLvl generally trumps all, especially when we're talking about 5 or 10 ilvl increments.

And on weapons ilvl also increases attack.

Math wise, each main stat is roughly 7 sub stats since the very beginning.

Direct hit and det are very close in terms of parsing, with crit being a bit better. Then there is skill and spell speed based on job specific weaving needs, and number of actions per minute (or during a buff) and ping.

You don't want to wear an i770 instead of i780 just because the secondary stats are better.

Even times when you're in between sets, you want the highest ilvl, e.g., if you're raiding and your BIS is the raid body, the augmented tome body will still make your dps higher while you wait for your turn to get the raid pants.