Why does this game hide essential character info?

[RoyalBeef]

Yeah, that was one of my first thoughts when I started and I still feel like it. If you can't look at a piece of gear and instantly tell if it's better than what you currently have or not without consulting theory crafting sources first, the system failed.
In other games, getting new gloves, you felt a difference, no matter how minor it was. In FF14 your whole ilvl can go up 20 levels and the only difference you notice is you have more hp, everything else feels exctly like it did before and you'd have to use 3rd prarty tools to even see if your damage out put in increased or i there are more crits than before.