I've played this game for 2 years, so while I'm not a new player, I've only ever had one loom, a +1 tempered nordic champions sword, and maybe a long hafted spiked mace or something.
While I currently borrow looms from the clan armory, this is so I don't have to buy the weapon itself.
My normal gear has no looms, on occasion I'll use a +2 German poleaxe that my friend lent me, but that's more for the looks (and again so I don't have to buy it)
Now I'm no amazing player, average, maybe slightly above, idk. But I never feel at a massive disadvantage to INFANTRY MELEE players who have looms compared to myself.
Now if I'm playing cav, and someone has a +3 Arabian warhorse, I really hate that (I personally think the turning etc is too fast) or if an archer has +3 bow and +3 bodkins, I'll be pretty annoyed at how fast they can kill me (but it's usually ok as I have a shield and don't go chasing archers)
So really, there's a few items that need their looms rebalancing, in MY OPINION, it's bows and the arabian warhorse (those being op to me) and while I haven't ridden the arabian, I did spend some time as an 18/18 longbow archer with +3 longbow and +2/3 bodkins. It was ridiculous.
EDIT: Just make your first gen MAIN char a lvl 30 straight of that bat, but it takes the eqiuvalent of 1-31 to retire (so normal retire time, just meaning they can't all bitch about the difference in stats which really pisses me off -.-)