Equipment looks good until you realize that mages naturally come with melee attacks. So, in reality, you're paying 9 or so mana to get 2 extra dice and an effect, which, considering Bear Strength is 5 mana and the fact that your mage's quick actions are likely better used on spells than mediocre attacks, isn't very good.
The Warlord and FM are exceptions, because their weapons can roll a lot more dice than other mages' weapons, and provide sweeping, which is just way better than a 50% chance to burn/daze.
The other problem is that card value is elevated for spells/attacks/etc played against a mage. Hence, Magebind and so on.