I am pretty sure I could have done a better job in 10 minutes. Making a new item better than another item in every aspect? If that isn't failing balance 101, I don't know what is.
At least they have acknowledged now that they suck at/don't care about stats balancing and are looking for people that would undoubtedly do a better job.
Yeah, I think 75% of the player base could do an adequate job at item balance. Step 1; identify an existing weapon that's generally considered "good". Step 2; perturb its stats in a series of tradeoffs (add speed/reduce damage, add reach/reduce speed, whatever) until it fills a niche that isn't currently available.
That's why I say just have the community crowdsource a fitness algorithm, then all stat perturbations could be performed parametrically. i.e. decide that 1 swing damage, 5cm reach, 2 thrust, and 1 speed are all of equal "value" (made up numbers, but you get the idea).
Off topic, but I also think the entire world should work this way. For instance, the NCAA tournament selection committee should decide before the season on a "merit" algorithm (other than the RPI), then no human bias can influence the final results/seeding. Humans are good at formulating sound math, and bad at making unbiased decisions, so sometimes we have to let math make our decisions for us.
