Quote Originally Posted by pielun View Post
Well,the problem all the japanese people were talking about was the Second hand problem.
Where people just continue to throw in the gear in the market after they don`t need it.
This lead to the drop of prices and crafters wanted something where there was a difference between new and 2nd handed items. So i think this Materia system answers this question, where battle classes use a particular weapon for a while(Until it`s like 0% perhaps)and then they can turn it into a materia borrowing the hands from gatherers and crafters.

So i think it isn`t something where players customise the weapon itself, but more of something where they keep changing their weapons into materias after they have used their weapons.This will solve the 2nd hand problem people are talking about and battle classes can keep moving forward by adding materia to their new weapon.
From my own understanding, you identified the problem correctly, but there has been a bit of a mishap in the translation of the method.
I may be wrong but he's talking about socketing weapons with materias (that can be found by gatherers and socketed by crafters) in order to turn them into personal items (probably non transferable), that will acquire a sentimental value.

Of course I may be wrong, but that's what I got out of it.