Yeah I have heard that the dev team felt they would not have been able to implement the concept (gear with actual interesting stats) within the timeframe of them re-releasing the game.

That being said, I feel that the current gear is incredibly stupid. It's just all super boring -- I only NEED 2 drops from Bahamuts Coil (as a scholar). Just hands and the book. Every other item might as well be my Mythology gear, and even to that end, it's all just useless stat padding. It's totally unacceptable from a FF game imo, and it bothers me that the dev team is so hush hush on this.