That's a fair comment, most rpg style games have you keep your level, skills, money and gear when you NG+, usually it's things like collectables or accolades that get reset when you NG+, for example Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War both let you keep your gear when you NG+, my thought is that the dev couldn't add better gear into the new game plus to replace the first run's gear, so he just stripped players of their gear so they at least had something to earn again, I suppose it's better than not having anything to work for, it's worth noting that this is an indie game and the devs have limited resources, otherwise they'd be using something more than RPGM.