Please read about Physical Levels and Removing them.

[Reika]

Lol, sales of lower level equipment have stagnated because there aren't enough people in need of the gear, not because you can equip a higher level item. You can equip it, it doesn't work as well and degrades faster, if you're so hell bent on them only wearing level appropriate stuff make it completely useless unless you're ~10 levels under it.

That is assuming you already have all your classes at Rank 50. If you had the money for high gear for your lower rank class, Given that that gear favors that class, would you bother looking at the lower rank gear, knowing that the stats would only be like 1 or 2 points lower?

[Seikninkuru]

That is assuming you already have all your classes at Rank 50. If you had the money for high gear for your lower rank class, Given that that gear favors that class, would you bother looking at the lower rank gear, knowing that the stats would only be like 1 or 2 points lower?

That's what I do while leveling my lower jobs up. The exception being something like...

I'm level 17, I have a piece of gear that's a few levels lower, I can upgrade to something that I'll use for 2 levels(there are some gaps like this in the game), or upgrade to something 7 levels above me. I buy the thing that's 7 levels above me because the 2 levels of optimal is not worth the cost/space of a stepping stone set.

Basically what I'm getting at is I don't wear level 50 shit on my level 1-39 classes. I'll use something about ~7 levels, unless it's a weapon, then it's even level or lower.