Can we get a materia required option for party finder?

[Kirika-]

Would appreciate it, not because materia itself gives you a huge edge or anything but players that actually care about taking 5 seconds to affix some materia are more likely to take the fight seriously. Thanks.

If your IL is under the IL sync for the instance, then materia does give a perk and is useful.
If you are over the IL sync, then you are synced down to that IL and any materia you have is not counted and provides no benefits.
That said, most all instanced fight mechanics can be cleared as long as the player's gear is near the recommended IL, not including materia

Why would I waste materia on gear I'll be replacing every 10 levels during leveling?

Once you out level melded gear, you can generally retrieve the materia at a 100% success rate, which you can then reuse in new gear and/or save for other jobs, or sell/trade.
If you manage your materia well, you can reuse them almost indefinitely.
Also, do not forget to extract newly created materia from your fully soul bonded gear, so you begin to generate new materia to use.