Why Magic Sometimes Sucks

Much like the weight issue, I've been informed thanks to sco412's FAQ on Gamefaqs that all equipment have a hidden penalty on them that lowers INT/SPR. Basically these equips can lower your natural stats into the negatives sometimes and sadly its hidden in all versions. Though the PS/GBA versions seem to have removed the stat from weapons but remains with armor.

Regretfully sco412's FAQ is the only one that gives a pretty decent listing of these penalties so definetly check them out. For those who don't want to bother, the basic rule of thumb is that you need to equip your characters like other FF job classes i.e. to make optimal mages you need to keep them in robes, using rods, non-helmets and gauntlets. Also Bows have a steep penalty but not nearly as bad as Genji Gear. So if you want to have a good mage, you need to start equipping them like mages.