Interesting. The gear is very much not my experience. Sure it is usually better than equivalent gear by a few levels, but there has been probably 75% of my game where I used relic swords instead of crafted. Even now with the end game crafted swords available, I am using relic swords instead of Superior Ursine swords.
For most of the mid game I was using Tir Torchir steel swords. In fact I got two, one slightly higher than the other. They lasted me a good 8 levels.
Now I’ve got a sword with a 10% burning chance that I’m rocking out. My armor is Superior Griffin, my bonus sign power is about 160, and mostly since I got to Novigrad my armor has been Witcher armor. Even for a few more armor points I’ve kept the Witcher gear because those bonuses are usually worth it. But non Witcher gear tends to have more rune slots for comparable levels.