I'm very much against having special items with unique skill modifications that all end up mathed out, FOTM'd and locked away behind savage raiding.

The base stats on the items and how they distribute player power in genera are fine.
Much better compared to WoW, where your character will always be trash if you do not raid at least heroic difficulty.

Now... Materia. Here they could theoretically bring in special materia, which they can make as easy or hard to obtain as they want.
Similar to AION stigma skill mods, every piece of gear that has materia slots would be compatible.

As they are now, materia for combat gear is borderline useless in terms of actual character power and exceedingly boring from a gameplay PoV.