Yes your a special snowflake, you transcend your gear and perform 120%.

Wait... no.. You don't

Yes even the best players can make mistakes, and skill has very little to do with gear.

However, if you have two groups of equally skilled players and one has even slightly better gear, guess which group does better?

You can't easily tell when picking up randoms who is skilled and unskilled, that's what friend lists, FCs and blocks lists are for. What you can easily, quickly, and reliably determine is what gear people have. I would rather control part of the equation then trust someone who whispers me, trust me I'm good (hint : everyone thinks they are good and that's ok!)