Quote Originally Posted by Roaran View Post
The whole point of the materia system is to destroy gear. Gear is constantly recycled in this economy. You essentially pay in the price of repairs to use gear, then once you're done with it sell for nearly the same price as you paid for.

Materia system destroys gear and turns it into another commodity that is also supposed to be completely destroyed at regular intervals.

It's a rather ingenious idea, economically.
It's definitely an interesting alternative to the bind on equip style systems. Hopefully there will be more incentive to convert old gear into materia instead of repairing it and reselling it.