Completely unrelated to my other comment, and more related to the actual post, I think looking at Factorio’s upcoming world generation changes may be a source of inspiration on how to do this better. Mojang won’t ever do it because it would take actual work for something most people won’t notice, so it’s up to the modding community.
Factorio may be a 2d game, but its world generation is done in 3d and then flattened.
Look at Factorio Friday Facts number 401 and scroll waaaaaaaaaaay down to the section on Natural Paths.
Even if the different gear were sidegrades to each other, that would still be better. Keep the main ones that you craft yourself as is, but then have findable versions that you can’t craft that have the same or similar stats but very different aesthetics (and possibly enchant bias). That would already make exploration more worthwhile. Armor trims are a step in the right direction, but making the schematics fragile is just a slap in the face. Actually, gear fragility really shouldn’t exist at all, but that conversation can happen another day.