I wish it was a little more flexible. Hard restrictions are ridiculous right now. On a personal level I didn't care what anyone else was wearing. It was crafted gear, it wasn't as though they slaved a week over ifrit or darkhold over them. Instance/boss gear though should have restrictions, anything special.

Besides there are obvious penalties now for equipping even the older gear. Why not build upon the current system and revamp the penalties to wearing gear outside your favoured/optimal class/level? >: No spirit binding, to slow spirit binding at half, and full at optimal+.

Again though these views end at crafted gear, and are only for crafted gear. I'm about 16k away from being able to equip a tiara I'd like to turn into Materia, I'd take a hit to the speed of that spirit bind gain if it meant I could get a small head start on it.

It worked because it was flexible. And it didn't hurt anyone because it was aesthetics. Class is irrelevant if you have all at 50 anyway. I'm sorry that this bothers people so much that it had to hinder a perfectly decent crafted gear system.