It’s not that gearing up helps or not. It’s not whether or not there are differences between the items or not. It’s simply that the equipment is offered, and I have the urge, instilled in me by every other RPG I’ve ever played, to purchase it so I’m at my best when I go into the next battle. The act of purchasing it is needlessly difficult, tedious, and ill-explained, and can’t happen simply by playing through the game normally. Your argument that it isn’t necessary is in and of itself evidence of how bad the system is - why include something in a game if it isn’t necessary? Just remove equipment altogether, like WA3 did.
I could use that argument to have a lot of classes and items and skills tossed out of a LOOOOOOT of games. 
Yes, but not an entire gameplay system.
How is having extra stuff at the shop the entire gameplay system? More FFT classes along with the equipment are useless and we’re not bitching about that. FFT! Your argument doesn’t hold water.
Um… I didn’t say the entire gameplay system, I said a gameplay system. Particular bits and pieces of equipment or abilities in FFT do not invalidate any specific gameplay system. You can still use shops without buying that one piece of equipment or use the class system without using that one particular ability. Your argument, however, is that every single piece of equipment in WAXF is unnecessary, in which case shops shouldn’t exist (except possibly to sell items). That’s an entire piece of the gameplay which should have been excised.
I never said every piece of equipment was unnecessary. Quote me or learn to read. Don’t make stuff up because your argument can’t hold itself together.
Can you please learn to have a civil discussion without accusing me of what sounds like deliberately misreading you? “Learn to read” is hardly a useful addition to a debate, and you’ve already used it twice. Let’s agree to disagree, because we’ve already had a similar discussion and I’m not interested in being talked down to.
The only discussion I’m having here is with myself since you’re incapable of properly quoting what it is I said.
(In a blatant attempt to steer the thread back on-topic) :
You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel that, while this game’s parts were very well made, they were not put together very well. The story didn’t seem to sync very well with the battles; many of them had the characters and their foes standing right next to each other and then, as the battle start, they’d be standing on different parts of the battlefield. Also, the way so many hints that lead nowhere were given, I can’t help but feel they couldn’t make up their minds whether to reveal them in this game or save them for a sequel. A sign of poor overseeing? Or perhaps, rushed too soon to the market?
I agree it was annoying that you’d end a fight close together and then restart all the way apart. Mostly because it took so long to get across the damn maps. What story details are you alluding to?
Sin: I mean the story clues I mentioned in my first post. I can’t believe, for example, that even by the end of the game, the Clarissa/Alexia switch was not confirmed, or even openly suggested! I kept waiting for Laby to mention that one of the girls had a childhood scar that turns out to be on the other one, or something. First time I see such a major plot point in a game not confirmed by the end.
There is a certain art to subtly telling a story and not going deus ex machina and tying up all the ends at the very end in a big orgasm of information, like Chrono Cross. I personally appreciate that a lot more.
Sin: That is true, but only if done well. If it had only been one or two things, leaving the player with an “I wonder if…?” feeling, it might have worked better. As it was, I can’t help but feel it was the result of a last-minute change of mind and not planned from the start.
I saw this coming a mile away, I think it was obvious from the start. If they had had to confront the whole thing about being swapped, it would’ve bogged down the story a lot more than it already was without really adding any substance to it. It would’ve been a long winded side plot.