need list of important/need to have/awesome gear and espers.... also.....

[espritduo]

Also, past level 50, I believe it is, your characters stop gaining the normal stats, and only gain HP/MP stats, so at this point, the esper system is more important, cause its the only way characters can permanently gain Str, Mag, Stm, and Spd.

Levelling up never raises your core stats, at any level. Only HP/MP increases with level ups. What a character's starting stats are is what they will still have at level 99 if you don't use espers. That's not to say your characters don't grow stronger, however. All attacks in the game, whether they be physical or magical, yours or the enemy's, use Level as a direct variable in damage output. The strength and magic stats just act as multipliers along with the Level stat to figure out damage dealt.

In short, you never need to use esper bonuses to increase your character's damage output as they level, and the game can be beaten just fine without ever getting any esper bonus stats. They just make your characters even stronger, and let you customize their growth.

EDIT: Hah, didn't realize you were Wolf Kanno. I'm not stalking you with FFVI corrections, honest!