More interesting loot please! Here are some ideas!

[Gilraen]

Gear in 1.0 had special effects like what the first post described. Not exactly like it, but they had special effects. White Mage AF pieces had boosts to healing potency, regen duration... in fact, all but one piece of AF was desirable over crafted because these special effects. Yoshida, though, didn't want players to be locked to a specific few pieces of gear like they were in 1.0, and what is normal in XI. So, he had the gear benefits reduced to just stat boosts, so people could wear whatever and still be viable in their roles. Whether this is the case or not is open to debate (the iL people versus the stats people) but there is no one gear set to rule them all. Would I like to see the return of special gear effects... sort of, but only if it's done in a way that it doesn't invalidate what we have now. Otherwise, no thank you.

[LineageRazor]

Gear in 1.0 had special effects like what the first post described. Not exactly like it, but they had special effects. White Mage AF pieces had boosts to healing potency, regen duration... in fact, all but one piece of AF was desirable over crafted because these special effects. Yoshida, though, didn't want players to be locked to a specific few pieces of gear like they were in 1.0, and what is normal in XI. So, he had the gear benefits reduced to just stat boosts, so people could wear whatever and still be viable in their roles. Whether this is the case or not is open to debate (the iL people versus the stats people) but there is no one gear set to rule them all. Would I like to see the return of special gear effects... sort of, but only if it's done in a way that it doesn't invalidate what we have now. Otherwise, no thank you.

But there already IS one gear to rule them all! Or, two, rather: Augmented Ironworks, and Dreadwyrm. Two ilvl 130 options - if you're wearing ANY other equipment at all, it is inferior gear on the way to obtaining Augmented Ironworks or Dreadwyrm. If anything, the vertical equipment progression has left us with even LESS options. If players are going to deny you because of your gear, it's VERY easy for them to identify whether you meet their standards or not. ilvl 130? No? Then gtfo u gimp scrub.

If Yoshida wanted to avoid us being locked to one piece of gear (or two), he sure had a funny way of going about it. At least if we had these pieces of gear with special stats, the minmaxers would at least have to crunch some numbers before pulling out the snobbery.

[Gilraen]

...the minmaxers would at least have to crunch some numbers before pulling out the snobbery.

For me iL means jack all, it's about the stats they have. In this end crafted is superior given melding. I don't look at iL when I look for new gear, I look at the stats they have. iL doesn't make you better, it gives you tunnel vision.