Quote Originally Posted by Jinko View Post
The speed of levelling obvious.. (power levelling for example)
Barring Power Levelling, the speed of leveling prior to 31 is still quite fast enough. I wasn't even thinking of power levelling, as for that one doesn't even bother with any gear prior to their 30s.

Also, don't forget that content prior to endgame is not balanced around materia-enhanced gear, and thus nobody is expected to have enhanced gear. This explains both the very small values of materia stats you can feasibly obtain at lower levels, as well as the higher tendency to materia enhance everything after 41.