Why do you guys want to but materia on everything? Using materia bind limits what the gear does. If SE makes U/U gear so you can put materia on it, that would suck!

I would like that other stats on gear other than what I can bind with materia. I use gear from the GC because they have stats on gear slots I cannot put on with materia. The Gridinian Square Shield has +10 M.Acc. Something you cannot do with materia. Every caster with the Gridinia GC uses this shield for a reason. I use the LL GC chest becuase it has +8 INT +8 MND and +10 M.Acc. Once again, stats I cannot put on a chest piece via materia.

The materia system is a genius way of keeping the crafter market going. Crafter makes gear, turns most of it into materia, save HQ gear made to try to bind. Crater blows up 80%, or more, HQ gear trying to create HQ double bind gear. So materia has its place.

So does U/U gear. Notice the primal weapons all have stats you cannot be put on them via materia? Ifrit weapons have a chance for fire damage and give fire resist, cannot do that with materia. Second only MRD and LNC can put Att PWR on their weapons via materia. So Ifrit ARC, GLA, PUG weapons are you can't even hope to remake with materia crafted gear. This makes Ifrit weapon very hard to replace with a crafted materia bind item. In order to have something in that same ball park as a Ifrit weapon, you need a HQ weapon and a double bind. Two lvl4 materia binds has about a 15% at success. That means if you had 20 HQ weapons and 40 lvl4 materia, you would get around 3 HQ double bind weapons. That is a hefty investment to get a weapon that is roughly equal to a drop.

All other drops, meaning not primal weapons, were in this game are pre-materia and not designed with materia system balance in mind. They are making DH worth the effort with the drop trade-able for company seals. So Darkhold has a purpose again. GC gear is good enough, since every piece is worth about 1.5 materia and has stats you cannot reproduce with materia. The system is fine in my humble opinion.