Was talking to Seha about this, it really bothers me that itemization in XIV is so lame. I think things like set effects and relic weapons/raid weapons getting added effects would help tremendously in making getting multiple different kinds of gear/weapons or playing around with different things that you normally wouldn't bother getting would be really cool.
Set effects would encourage you to gather full sets instead of mishmash, or go for mix and match to increase base stats if that's what you prefer. For example...
A full set of Shire gear could give you a 5% chance to recover HP when you get attacked.
A full set of Alexandrian gear could give you a 10% chance to receive a 10% damage buff for 5 seconds when you use a combo finisher or other abilities.
Weapon procs/abilities would give you more reason to go after different weapons or perhaps breathe life into different types of weapons.
A Shire Bhuj might enhance your self healing abilities by 25%.
An Alexandrian Metal Axe could give you a 5% chance to evoke a beam of light that deals additional damage to the enemy when you use a skill that spends Defiance stacks.
A Zurvanite Axe could have a 20% chance to deal double auto attack damage.
Relic could add a 10% crit buff to Berserk.
Things that add additional value or flavor to weapons. Doesn't necessarily have to be on all weapons, could just be relics. Relics are generally kept a step behind the current top tier anyway, so the whole "Relics would be the best thing ever and you'd never use anything else" excuse could easily go out the window if the added effects merely have the potential bridge the gap between a current top tier weapon and the "gimp" relic weapon. Additionally, keep the relic weapon upgrade process the same as it currently is, and add an extra step after it is fully upgraded for that current patch: a drop from the current raid that, when added to the weapon, adds/strengthens its bonus proc/ability. That way, the "casuals" still have their weapon without any power loss while people who have raid experience and can consistently get to the end and farm the raid weapons have an alternative or flavor weapon by augmenting their relic.
I really don't understand the inhibition when it comes to these types of systems. Dumbing down XIV's itemization and stat "complexity" doesn't really do much aside from coddle people who don't want to put an ounce of thought into their gear decisions and remove player choice.