For those that want skill bonuses on gear: How would you do it?

[Felis]

We had special effects and skill bonuses on gear in 1.0.
We have it in XI as well.

But the thing is, neither of those are as linear as XIV is now. To properly do this, you'd want to get rid of the vertical climb, and instead offer challenges that give people marginally different stats, rather than marginally higher stats. At the end of the day, there's always going to be a BiS so even with a drastic change to gear progression, not much will change.
Personally, I'm all for this. But I could imagine many not wanting it.

If the effects are on materias then there is not really a problem with the vertical gear climb. You can just transfer the effect to your new gear with farming the materia again.
It will be only a problem if the effect is fixed on the gear itself.