the limitations of warband's equipment system were the fault of warband, not from the fundamental system. people played with what equipment was available; obviously the basic swadian infantry will choose 1h, shield, awlpike because what else is there to choose?
when the system did provide players with choices, players used them. it is dishonest to suggest that the competitive community only used 1 loadout for each faction. examples: swadian inf with heavy armour at the cost of low tier weapon and shield, sarranid inf with scimitar instead of axe for more armour, sarranid inf with javs at cost of armour/weapon, courser cavalry for more speed/armour at cost of tank horse, war horse cavalry at cost of armour, etc etc.
when you present players with options in the warband equipment system, they will use them. the gold system balances how each option interacts with each other. with some fine tuning (that i was expecting to come from bannerlord), the system could definitely have been perfected.
i agree that the class system works, and probably works better than the warband equipment system, in skirmish mode - they were designed to complement each other. however, when we think of other game modes like siege, tdm and battle, the faults of the class system become far more apparent.