A potential solution to item level syncing & power creep:

[Azuri]

You are aware that materia is ignored for synced gear and if you were to have a 345 piece with two respective det materia the total stats would be crit 123, det 118, right?

You do get an increase in stats from syncing sufficiently high ilevel gear, but it's not major.

[1WhiteShadow]

You are aware that materia is ignored for synced gear and if you were to have a 345 piece with two respective det materia the total stats would be crit 123, det 118, right?

You do get an increase in stats from syncing sufficiently high ilevel gear, but it's not major.

Not all 345 pieces are crit > det. If you build a full 345 set versus a synced crit > det set you won't have similar substats. For the example chest piece specifically, yes you're right on that but there's a difference between a full 345 set with melds and synced pieces.

Even then this affects content outside of ultimates.

[Azuri]

Not all 345 pieces are crit > det. If you build a full 345 set versus a synced crit > det set you won't have similar substats. For the example chest piece specifically, yes you're right on that but there's a difference between a full 345 set with melds and synced pieces.

Even then this affects content outside of ultimates.

That doesn't matter. Difference between individual substats accounts for sub-1% final dps variation. Your substat totals are what matters for this discussion. And you are willfully ignoring 32 substat you are going to have from materia in your argument.