That's fair. I used it a little but wanted to try the weapons the game presents instead. You could argue that the game shouldn't hand it out immediately at the beginning of the game, but then again it also doesn't force it onto you - you're free to switch as you please. If you want to experiment, do that. If you like the weapon and enjoy the moveset, I think you just found a weapon you vibe with and that's fine. I also gravitate towards special myself, so I also don't end up mixing weapons around too much.

I've only played the game back when it was released around 2017 and I don't think we had that back then. But yea, absolutely. Then again, low rank is just that: low rank. You don't want to invest too much time into all kinds of different armours in low rank unless you're enjoying the farming anyway. Once in high rank, there's more of a reason to farm some monsters since it's a bit of step up in difficulty compared to LR. But if you're comfortable playing with that gifted armour up until end-game content, chances are you're likely good enough at the time that you wouldn't spend too many resources on new armour and focus on weapons instead - where needed, of course, since there's only so many GS or hammers you need, for example :D The "real" game starts after HR after all