Dungeons & Dragons: Fourth Edition - Axel Looks It Over In Too Much Detail

Items haven't ceased being cool. They've just cut down the absolute need of having them.

For example, there's no more items or spells that boost ability scores. Instead, players get more points to raise their scores as they level up. Ability score boosts, both from items and spells, were a huge part of raising everything else in old versions. This improved ability score progression is also what replaces the old Base Attack Bonus concept. A fighter who is putting a point into strength at every chance (each level that lets you improve them gives you two points that must go into two different abilities, except levels 11 and 21, in which every ability goes up one) is going to, by leaps and bounds, be a better meleer than a wizard. But, if that wizard decided he wanted to be capable in it as well, there is nothing stopping him from leveling up in strength as well. He could even take the feats to swap out a spell for one of the fighter's melee encounter powers. You're no longer screwed outright for wanting to be a fighter/mage.

Anyways, back on track. The enchantment bonus caps at +6 at level 30, and there's no stacking. Not in like complicated stacking rules, but that only armor can grant AC, only neck items can grant fort/refl/will, and only weapons can boost hit and damage. It used to be that a significant portion of your extra damage came from items. Now, if you look over the items, you'll notice a majority of them do "cool things" rather than simply granting large boosts. Most items have a power (most often, a daily), similar to the ones you select for your characters. For example, a flaming burst sword might have the power to cause a firey explosion on impact once per day. There are rules limiting how many daily item powers you can use before resting, so you can't go hog-wild spamming items, but if you are of the hording nature, you'll still have a long list of special attacks and utilities at your disposal for whatever the situation may call for.

It isn't so much that items stopped mattering or being cool. I think they got cooler, because they shifted from boosting numbers to actually doing something. It's that they shifted it such that all of those people who like their low-magic, "drizzt used a +2 sword" worlds can still be playing in relatively the same ball-park as the Monty Haul league. There's now much more freedom to play around with the loot.