Wow, lots of different discussions going on in this thread.

-- Parsers: They are good if you are interested in game mechanics/formulas. They are good to unveil the hidden meaning and impact of stats and skills. Since we are not told what the formula is, and the observed results are random, only a parser can tell us what the secret formula is.

-- Number Crunching: It can be interesting or even fun to optimize for numbers. However, do we want a game where that is necessary? So far, every Final Fantasy game I played did not care if I optimized for equipment/skills/whatever. I would either win or loose. If I loose, get something better. If I win, then I'm good enough to carry on to the next adventure. FF is not a combat simulator. It's a story telling game where children save the world from evil do-ers.

Now back to topic!

-- User Created UI: If a new UI package appears that a subset of the community deem ultra important and ultra necessary to the point that they will not party with others that do not have it installed then this has a negative impact to those who do not want to use that package. You can see this now with voice-chat. It's pretty much mainstream and many people will prefer not to party (or will refuse to) with others who do not have that voice-chat software. The same MAY become with other addons. For example, ones that show % of health and distance, where strategy says: Stand exactly 12 yalms from target and attack until 63%. (We are almost there now with Garuda and Raven).

But if you dig into those arguments above you can see the real underlying issue:
It is not the tools that we create, or the desire to have optimized equipment that matters. It is the world that SE creates. If they create a world where we NEED to know how to optimize our equipment to succeed, or we NEED add-on tools in order to finish an adventure then people will naturally go in that direction.

If however, SE creates a world where knowing the formulas or optimizing gear are 'nice' but hardly 'necessary', and the benefit of add-on tools are purely cosmetic without any gameplay impact then the need for those will be diminished.

So, Yoshi, what kind of world will you create for us? Where focus is on adventuring and storytelling with only a minor emphasis on equipment, or one where the parser and numbers shall rule us all?