A better way is to allow for "Effect Grafting" sort of like glamour. You get the effect through a quest or something, then graft it to your current gear as you do glamour. This would allow for effects to not make one item mandatory while also allowing progression, ie...

"Boosted Flash" obtained in Tower of Ancients
"Boosted Flash 2" obtained in Coil 1

And so on. Sure some effects would prove more useful then others, but that's a thing in mmos in all aspects of said games. Once you have said effect, you would then be able to attach it to any gear you like.