There is a list on wikki that shows a table with gear you can swap in for reward with charisma and a chart
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Reward
I personaly think what they have is fine maybe a little more could be added post 90 if any. Other than that a -pdt pet item (like -pdt axe's) or rewards from MKD head piece or what not also are nice. The flexibility of swaping gear for this specfic event is more usefull to me than wearing it full time. In accordance In regards to a emperian wpn. I say leave it how it is. If I wanted to do damage I would swap in a hard hitting wpn to fight. Want my pet to live ... swap in some -pdt stuff... want to heal it swap in some reward + and chr stuff. Its realy how much involved you want to get into the job and get various gear and stuff for it which makes this game dynamics truely amazing.
For my ideas of making reward better I would like to see them being able to stack to 99 instead of 12
Or agment other food that has the same effects that like a atma would in abby like a actual pet food you would have to use once per 30 mins or so to increase a pets stats same way food would effect would us the actual player (not pets) but not be effective in the actualy reward system. If this would be made though. I forsee changing reward to Pet healing command with items useable like eta etc. With rewards being diffrent foods you could use to increase its specific bonus ... exaple pets attack str etc.