As a note before hand, I have played that game through twice so I know ins and outs of it, but stick with me here.
I like the idea of the refinement system. Fire becomes no longer useful after a while, so why not put those to use by making them into Firas. Makes sense right? But then things get odd...
I was flipping through my FFVIII strategy guide and noticed this:
So let's say I have some Str Ups lying around. I could use them on a character, but with all the party switching that goes on, I feel it would be more useful to turn two of them into a Str-J scroll. Well, it turns out that I have my GFs set up so all my characters can already junction to strength, so I decide to bunch 10 of them and turn them into a Power Wrist. Str + 40% will really beef up my character. But then I notice that I can get a Hyper Wrist for Str + 60% by refining 10 Power Wrists. Great, makes my character even stronger! But what's this? 10 Hyper Wrists refine into a Str Up? So if my basic math is correct, that means that if I put in a lot of time and effort, I can refine 2000 Str Ups into a Str Up! How does that make sense? So Str Up is at the same time half as valuable as a Str-J scroll and 1000 more valuable...