Today I found Absor's old class discussion forums for 6 classes and located an amazing bit of info.
Source: Absor - Official Forums
Date: May 2nd 2001
"Absor
Station Member posted 03-02-2001 06:35 PM
This is regarding the clerical Plane of Growth breastplates, the ones with the ability to cast Celestial Elixer (the Chestplate of Stability, Akkirus' Chestplate of the Risen, the Breastplate of Forbidden Rites and the Templar's Chestplate). For many of the same reasons that we made recent changes to the Donal's Breastplate, we are going to make some changes to these items with the next patch (which will be next week).
Existing instances of these Plane of Growth breastplates will have the casting time for Celestial Elixer increased to one minute.
No new instances of the Plane of Growth breastplates will occur (they will stop dropping).
In places where the Plane of Growth breastplates were being created (off of NPC corpses or as the result of quests) new breastplates will be created.
Basically,
the existing breastplates are having their casting times increased and they won't be dropping anymore, new breastplates will take their place.
I'm sorry that these items are being changed so long after their introduction. But this is something that we feel needs to be done for the integrity of gameplay in EverQuest.
Alan"
http://web.archive.org/web/200103040...ML/063795.html
Prenerf: 24 second cast
Post Nerf: 1 minute cast