Items do have their uses. Like when you want to get to 50 prestige and you don't want to wait longer
Its true but I jest slightly. The prestige bonus is kind of whatever except for that scenario so the only tangible worth is the % skill bonus. That bonus can be pretty sweet once you upgrade something a few times and/or getting multiple items with bonuses. I play a great adventurer on EC who repairs an unholy amount of items for an entire realm and one of his customers has two items that give a total of 26% bonus to Oratory, very handy for Heroes and Priests me thinks.
What skill bonuses have you seen? I've only seen Oratory and Trading and now I've heard of Infiltration.