What is it good for? I think I am not the only one disappointed with the materia system, but I suppose what I am wondering is what the developers envisioned the materia system to be.

First, I want to clarify that it is obviously useful for Disciples of the Hand/Land...simply as a substitute for more varied gear (oh well). But at least there is some progression in "power" here, I suppose.

For Disciples of War/Magic, materia slots are completely absent from all high level gear and dungeon drops. However, they appear on crafted whites? The only classes that use materia are tank classes, and even then only 2 types (with a smattering of other types simply because of cap).

I have several questions with this system.

1. At what point did powerful materia become relegated to...stat boosts?
2. Why shouldn't materia actually have useful qualities? It seems like a cheap way to copy gems from other games...while retaining none of their usefulness, and also not retaining any of the FF uniqueness of materia.
3. Is there a reason high level gear doesn't have materia slots? Why? At any given moment in progression there is basically no choice in gear. You have at BEST 2 pieces to choose from.
4. Why did you decide on the Korean grind version of random upgrade lottery + destruction chance with overmelds? Why not just have exponentially increasing costs? That way everything is easily quantified, and there would be no frustration.
5. Why can't we remove materia from sockets?
6. When was elemental materia ever useful, and why haven't they been removed from the game yet?

To expand on #2, it is clear materia can't grant actual abilities or summons or whatnot. But why not make them specifically useful, tailored to a playstyle?

For example, lets make materia give healers a boost.
[Green materia] - Your heals deal an additional HoT of 1/2/3/4% of the healing dealt over 6 seconds.
[Blue materia] - Your heals grant a 0.5/1/1.5/2% absorption shield to the target lasting 6 seconds.

For tanks, the same materia would have different effects
[Green materia] - incoming heals are increased by 1/2/3/4%
[Blue materia] - The final hit of your threat combo decreases damage taken by 2/4/6/8% for 3 seconds.

Similarly we can split yellow and red materia.
[Red] - Chance on ability use to increase damage dealt by 1/2/3/4% for 10 seconds.
[Yellow] - Chance on ability use to increase a random offstat by 10/20/30/40 for 10 seconds.

Etc. etc. There are so many things you can do with materia and gear that is so much MORE than just having a bigger statstick.

People should realize by now that the only difference between ilvl160 and ilvl200 is your stuff hits harder...but you're doing the exact same thing as you were doing back then.

Since FF14 doesn't have class sets or trinkets or other things that actually differentiate gameplay, the materia system had so much promise in the ability to customize your playstyle, that is horribly underutilized.

Right now only 3 classes use them, and only because itemization for tanks is so bad that parry (the only actual defensive stat) is completely useless and dps is the only thing they think about.

It is a pity, I think.