Group some items that are very similar but have different looks and give them all the same stats.
The advantages would be that people can look more on the looks instead of the stats when selecting an item and less items to balance around overall. Since this is obviously only possible in a few instances there'd still be a fast amount of items with different handling for different playstyles.
F.e. in shields
Knightly Heater Shield
Elite Cavalry Shield
Knightly Kite Shield
Now, I can understand that the round shield is broader and shorter, but why have differences between kite and heater and other stat differences? Even making all 3 roughly the same height and width wouldn't probabably be a gamebreaker, since their area is increased through shield skill anyway. So if I want to use small shield I just pick one for theme, but if they are different one might suit me better even if it doesn't fit/dont like the looks.
Another example polearms:
Long War Axe - Great Long Axe
German Poleaxe - Elegant Poleaxe
The only gameplay relevant difference between the models is 2 respectively 1 length difference. Moving the lower 1 up and the higher 1 down wouldn't be even noticeable I guess - otherwise they could have entirely equal stats.
There's a couple of more groups (1h swords, maces, 2h swords, axes) you could do, ideally each item category had a couple of different themed weapons with equal stats.
