How in the world can they make gear even more simplified?
Most jobs only need to focus on two / maybe three substats currently. every single piece of gear in the game is functionally identical to it's role-appropriate wearers ; no two pieces of gear every truly do different things (besides having different main / substats, which isn't really significant enough to make one piece seem like it's doing something different than another).

I like that they want to keep it simple but it seems to me like they're doing it to the detriment of the game now. Why ever bother going for stronger gear when it does the exact same as your current gear but with slightly higher numbers that only matter if you're doing cutting-edge savage speedruns and trying to shave a few seconds off? Doesn't that make higher-level gear redundant? If there's nothing to differentiate it from old gear except small substat changes, but your current main/substats are enough, then gearing up sounds like it'd just be a waste of time to me.