There is always hype for players to push for what is currently the "best" that can be done just before something new comes along and rolls over it. The first time we had the Zero Meseta Campaign I remember seeing so many people getting so excited about upslotting their Trailblazer and Atlas EX weapons for the Phantom and they pulled off these "high-number" affixes but either lacked SSA's in order to do so or completely omitted Phrase Decay because it was not yet available. There were definitely arguments of "Well, at least I have good numbers" or "that's only 5% and impossible to get" shortly before the Episode 6 update dropped and suddenly it was available (though through Trigger Quests at the time).
Even back during Episodes 1-4 the hype was all towards Nemesis/Raven weapons which ended up costing a monstrous fortune. If you did not care so much about the power balance of the game at the time (New-Type weapons completely trivialized Episodes 1-4 and the special fourteen star weapons from Episode 4 if you were able to tolerate the obnoxious drop rates which were carried over from the Japanese side also contributed to trivializing further content when it was revealed they had the Episode 6 Redux potentials already) you did not need the Nemesis/Raven weapons. I distinctly recall so many people rushing to attempt affixing these weapons to make them "godly" using Episode 3 affixes (which are trivial now compared to what we can do with significantly less effort in Episode 6) that just stacked numbers on top of numbers. This would eventually lead to players who attempted to affix, failed, and then decided to shamefully sell their now-broken weapons because they did not know how to upslot or realized their high-end weapon was no longer the same as it was before.
In Episode 5 the fourteen-star weapons introduced already had their Episode 6 Plus Potentials available which meant that players who can do that farm for Ultimate Boosters (or who already did for running Ultimate Quests repeatedly) were able to have a power advantage at least until Atlas EX was finally introduced which completely sidelines most of those fourteen star weapons (except Jupiter Tullus for the Bouncer).
Phantasy Star Online 2 always has had some sort of "buyers remorse" that drives impulses for players to jump in on the hype for things like afffixing and doing what is the current best option. But if you already saw how the Japanaese side of things played out and how fast we were approaching it from the global side you can determine whether or not you can afford to wait for those higher-end affixes and mechanics to come around. When we get Guardian Soul becoming a thing you will definitely see another big push towards what the Japanese players have been affixing for at least for months now and you will finally be able to affix to your heart's content without feeling like your effort was "wasted" if you hate the idea of something new coming along so quickly because you weren't aware of what future content was like spoiler-wise. The only time I have affixed was only to upslot and to create budget builds for my equipment because it cost nothing for me to outside of the fodder and at least to me the content that I play does not make too much of a difference on whether or not you are playing with an Atlas EX on its normal or redux potential if you have the skill to play the content unless you were wanting to shave off seconds on your times for timed content.
