Grand Company - Bard - Just hit 50

Any advice would be appreciated. I just came back after being gone a year. I finished getting my first toon (Bard) to fifty. I have spent all of my stuff to get promoted several times with the flames. I keep finding 1+ year old forums saying that I should have gone another route for better Bard gear. At this point is it worth switching to another company and starting a fresh grind or are the gear differences so minor, with higher level dungeon gear easily obtainable that it doesn't really matter?

It was actually while leveling through the early 40's that I found GC gear useful. At 50, there is much better gear easily available. And the differences between the stats on different GCs' gear are minor. (You get the same primary stats regardless of GC, but some have more or less useful secondary stats. For temporary gear that's just filling in for a little while until you get a better replacement, I wouldn't worry that much about the secondary stats.)

Any guide that cares about GC stuff is likely using 1.0 data. The game was pretty much a different game back then.