So, after playing for a while with several restarts for various reasons most of them being I tend to switch to one life to Live after the "Protection" drops off at lvl 6. I would like to say the new system does a surprisingly good job of making progression seem more personal and getting you to emotionally invest into your build. However I have just one problem with the system witch can be best put as, to me, Mod's are more valuable then tiers. In other words there is no way I would trade a rank 5 leather set for a rank 1-4 military set unless I have been very unlucky with my mods and don't have enough to fill the slots.
The one Idea/suggestion I have would perhaps replace the lower grades with mod unlocks and have the tail end of crafting skill give the equipment its self. I will admit I can only really come up with the setup for armor: tier 1 would still be 1-5 armor but Tier 2 would be like: Bandler/Headlamp, Cooling/Heating Mesh, Impact boots/Custom fittings/Muffled Connecters , Leather/Iron armor rank 5. Tier 3 would be: Water purifier, Armor Pocket 1/Adv Muffled Connecters, AP 2/Adv custom fittings AP 3, Military and Steel Armor. This of course Just being a rough draft and not necessarily the exact order I would want to see it.
Of course there are a whole slew of mods for melee and ranged weapons but There is a lot of overlap so I see a problem with either A you end up still having to get unused skills to get everything or B some of the mods would have to overlap in were they are crafted.