The only nitpick I have with sync is materia. Materia is useless in so much content, it's surprising they don't just scale it down along with your gear (so if you're scaled to il130, your grade VIII becomes grade IV's). 435 is an interesting bracket where you can't get much advantage from melded gear too, the closest is 430 artifact gear and that melded isn't really that much better than 435 unmelded.

But it's just a nitpick, it's fine to have everyone on an even playing field for gear, especially if they want it to feel like experiencing it as it was back in the day. Letting you zerg it would go against the whole point.