I don’t love free wargear (because there will inevitably better or worse options when everything is a straight swap whereas with points cost you can balance finely), but I can see that it makes life easier.
Fixed unit sizes, however, are supremely shit. All in all totally ripped the variety out of list building, which was one of my favourite things about the game. Lists now will look mostly identical.
If a gear option was just objectively better, people would talk about the unit as though they were the cost with the equipment. It allows for lists that aren’t being taxed to death for funtional choices. Also I feel like the wide varieties of strength makes it less “this one is objectively better” and more “this one is objectively better against tanks” but we’ll see as the games get played and the tournaments battle reports get posted