Upgrading U/U items to make them better.

[Razor]

Honestly part of the issue was that Materia is so powerful it is obnoxious to balance. One of the core problems we had pre-stat fix was that stats contributed so little to calculations that it was hard to notice any change. Then Materia came and did the exact same thing. Before materia U/U gear was good because it gave that edge over crafted gear (much like it was in XI. The difference wasn't always striking, but it was just a hair better). Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

That's like and extra 25% on a single item; although granted we will likely never actually see a quintuple melded T4 pair of gloves, but still. It is very plausible to have Attack Power +50 or STR+40 for a reasonable amount of money. In order to make U/U gear anywhere near comparable it would have to be so overpowered it would need to look something like this: "STR+25 Attack Power+40" And this is only at lv50! What happens when the cap raises and we're at 75? Oh, derp, heres your 100 points of STR on a single item, have a good day.

EDIT: And yes there is always the window for special materia that gives added benefits. But if the enhancements are anywhere near as laughable as previous U/U gear, it won't be worth it. Haste +3% won't be worth forgoing an obnoxious amount of STR/Attack. In order to make these "special materia" enhancements worth getting, they would have to be as equally broken. Pretty soon it's going to be XI's "haste cap" all over again; except this time it'll be with like... you know... an item and a half.