Wow, I really think that has huge potential in allowing more depth and variety in builds.

Let me see if I got this right, buffs would come from gear. Different weapons and different armour pieces would contain different buffs, which when equipped, the character can use and have the buff on.

That sounds extremely good to me, I haven't come across a game like that yet.

There could be rare to very rare weapons/armour that give extremely good buffs if put on. Different variety of gear could be put on to have a different set of buffs on, which would differentiate each character from the other.

So gear would be extremely important in the game, what does this do to stats/skills?