With the addition of all the new gear from adoulin there are many nice stats, but the song specific stats that Emp+2 gear seem to be lacking. So until those kinds of stats appear on other pieces of gear bards will always have to carry around 5/5 Emp+2 to put on before their songs end to get the boost from each respective piece.
I don't suspect this was from design, as the song+1 stats only occurred on Gjallarhorn until EMP+2 was released.
Back then SE didn't forsee Adoulin and beyond so they may have wrote themselves into a corner when bard is considered.
Our stats/job is very specialized in FFXI, since the strength of our songs are only affected by 3 stats(for buffs) and 6 stats(this is debatable) for offensive songs.
Buffs seem to only need singing, then wind or string skill(when using the respective instrument) and any gear that has song+ stat for that specific song.
At present the only armor that has the song+ stats are the EMP+2 gear. All of which affect buffing songs only. So until other gear has those song+ stats, I believe we'll be stuck using those as our equipment before we finish those 5 songs that are listed
on the set.(precast gear first then these gears before song finishes activation for their respective boosts)