You are wrong, armour upkeep is necessary. Since the patch has been out, I have seen one tincan and one Horse Archer. This keeps it fair, so people can't just run into the front lines and kill everything whilst wearing plate. Sure, the upkeep is too expensive at the moment.
I don't believe weapon upkeep is necessary though, as there is no 'tier' weapons; It comes down to preference. Even still, the bastard sword is similar to the katana in stats and costs 330 gold, where the katana costs around 9.8k. The katana costs alot more to repair due to the price difference. This is all written in my opinion.
Cheers.
You pay the japanese anime style.
I personnaly believe there's something wrong with the idea of an upkeep system in a game of "progress". It's clearly easier to force players to wear lighter equipment that way, but the "equipment farming" factor becomes void in cRPG. You simply play like in Native, or maybe even worse because you can loose your equipment for the next round.
But why not simply balance the stats better, if you aim to decrease the plate population ? Add armor value to lighter armors, decrease armor values of plates. The game is already giving nearly similar advantages for a light armor and a heavy armor. Speed and protection balance. A skillful player may like speed over protection more than a less skilled one, and choose a lighter equipment (MANY skilled players already do that). Many players say they play better when they do not wear top tier armors.
The ONLY reason why a skilled player would use a plate armor, was sniper-longbows-of-I-kill-you-and-your-grandmother-in-one-hit. And thanks chadz those vanished. Now, the level cap already prevents people from being sick fast and using plate armor. There's no equipment imbalance anymore, even without upkeep.
About diversity, IMO the upkeep won't lead to diversity. People will choose the best armor/price ratios. And as everyone will be authorised to upkeep 20k or 30k... Everyone in a class will soon be using the 2, maybe 3 same armors, except clans with uniforms, because everyone can support the SAME amount !!! Yes everyone will be able to upkeep the same amount of equipment value. Even with extreme gear, you can't hope of really influencing the round outcome. And even if you succeed to increase your chance of winning a round to 60%, which is a big influence, it's not economical on the long run because you have to pay for your supposedly better equipment when you fail.
So yes, upkeep is fail IMO.