I have two objections to gear score: one practical, one principle

Principle:
It doesn't make sense that the 416 I found two seconds ago is "better" than the one I found two hours ago. Wildlands treated every 416 assault rifle the same, as well it should have. I just don't think this gradual improvement in weapon quality based on... what exactly? makes any sense

Practical:
In the quest to improve your gear score, you're of course going to swap out gear as you go. With weapons this becomes tedious. Find a better gun, then open the weaponsmith to put on the scope you like, the rail cover option you want, the underbarrel option you want, and the muzzle option you want. Then don't forget to change the paint scheme that you've grown fond of as well. Play for about 20 minutes, find another gun, then do it all over again. Sigh

I really haven't figured out what gear score is based on and what it's supposed to mean. I have fancy pants now so I'm 'better'? I need to have fancy pants, gloves, hat, and boots before I can walk into a zone without getting a gear score warning? Gear score doesn't necessarily have any bonuses tied to it, so what's the rationale here? Wildlands prided itself in allowing you to conquer the cartel bosses in any order you wanted. Some zones might be harder, but that's because the camps would be more densely populated with bad guys, not because the bad guys in that province had fancier pants and thus got some mystical bonus to kick my hand-me-down-wearing butt with impunity. If Breakpoint was striving for increased realism, this mechanism is a fail subjectively AND objectively.