Keep in mind, a lot of the idea of gear is that there's generally NOT
a perfect set of armor you should go get - or if there is gear that's
obviously the "go-to", it's very limited and fought over. I tend to
feel it makes CF more interesting, as you don't have every character
wearing the same gear, and you often have to make choices. Do you
keep item A, or item B? Or maybe you carry around an extra item to
switch out? Is it something you can get easily when you need? Etc.

As far as simply mechanically, I expect limited/not limited is a
pretty simple way to make the item search work. "Some" limited is
probably far more difficult to do.

Personally, I'm generally shooting to cover my own needs as a "general"
set (stats, dam as a warrior - hp for a mage), and then consider my
main difficult or frequent enemies secondly as to what gear I either
commonly wear, or keep as a "swap out" set.