At the moment some tier 1 feel like junk, although others like magic crit potency you do see +20 on a tier 1 now and again which is welcome.
I assume if materia could be upgraded that this would make the lower tiers more expensive as they would be in demand? or perhaps in turn stablise the prices of tier 3 and 4 bringing them down a notch? The whole system is prohibitive because of the price of higher tier materia. Its made even worse by the fact gear can break.
An alternative suggestion would be to allow a player to combine a tier 1 & 4, or a tier 2 & 3 together to get a beefed up materia. That would take some of the melding risk away in that the risk is associated with materia alone and not gear. It would near guarantee a sale of tier 1 and tier 2 as no one would use a tier 4 and 3 alone when they have the option to beef it up (just a little bit) with a tier 1 and 2 before melding.
