Good suggestion Silvano. I honestly hadn't considered the AF armor, and I hadn't put too much thought into the poor man's gear set. I focused more of my attention on the more expensive version.

Also, if you guys really want to test the difference in weapon Base Damage, I would suggest using a naked Archer and firing different kinds of Arrows. That should be a cheap way to get the data. I've been meaning to do that myself for a long time now >.>

Another tidbit of data that me and my LS mate kaeko have been trying to analyze is that the "cap" for all the classes is not a fixed value. It has various factors that influence the caps. For example, If you parse on an Ifrit's Axe versus a Mog Axe you will find that the stats cap 3-5 points lower. If you wear a really low base damage weapon (I tested on a weapon with 59 base damage) you will find you have already capped your stats without wearing any gear. The frustrating part of the testing is that different Jobs/Classes have different Base Damage values for Ifrit Weapons, yet they all cap pretty much at the same values. Also, the base damage difference (as far I can tell) seems to be non-linear in stat cap influence. Most of this testing was pre-1.21 so once the game quiets down again I'll go back and revisit the data.

Just know that part of the reason why low base damage weapons do much less damage is because stats are capped earlier.