You still get green gear drops (dust! DO NOT upgrade as even after upgrading to blue it still keeps the half durability with the same cost to repair, this would cost a fortune. Better to do the gear quests and upgrade those.)
Blue jewelery drops, useful. Plan to keep those for rebirth or dust.
Dragon gear, useful.
Relics still drop, unfortunately can only sell them to game: 50s for rabbit, 75s for fox, 1g for heron (not 100% on the heron, none dropped yet)
Still get hero of the empire rep based on your reps and how far you go in cave and fort.

I would love to see the relics replaced with something useful.