changes to the game that would go hard

[Collin_Sky]

Nah, it isn't what happens now. What happens now is that an expansion releases, you buy the uncapped tome gear to do extreme, then you get extreme gear (which serves no purpose other than parsing). Then you buy a set of crafted gear to do savage. Most people stop here and don't do ultimate on content. They might do it later but we'll have access to higher ilvl gear and you won't need savage gear by then. For the people who do prog savage on content, you do actually get some mileage out of your tome/savage gear but the 4 month delay between savage and ultimate completely removes any feeling of progression.

The tomes for that uncapped gear come from dungeons, which also drop the accessories you need before you can even get the uncapped tome gear. It’s essentially the same process.

I'm fine with crafted gear allowing people to catch up but it shouldn't be mandatory and should not replace your previous BiS. It should be the same ilvl as previous BiS.1

Even if it were the same ilvl, it would still be stronger because 5 materia slots > 2. Granted, some pieces have less desirable substats like SKS or TEN, but in general, more slots still provides a clear advantage.

Yes, I'm looking at gearing from the perspective of it being functionally beneficial in-game, rather than tangentially beneficial in the FFLogs metagame.
Because, as garbage as it is, the illusion of progression is the only progression that the game affords them. There's nothing else to do. Reclearing for gear so you can play content without grey parsing is better than clearing once and coming back in 8 months.

But wanting to improve my performance isn’t only about parsing. I’d still strive for better gear even if logs didn’t exist. Saying the only reason to gear up is for FFLogs is incredibly reductive.

I’ve offered plenty of reasons why gearing multiple jobs at a decent pace is reasonable, yet the only response you've provided is "lol it doesn't matter you don't really need the gear just stop caring about your parse". I actually enjoy the content we have, I’d just like to play it on other jobs without feeling like I’m griefing the party because I want to play something that isn't my main.