if you're really a badass, go for marduk head and legs. they both blow away any other piece of gear in that slot in the game right now, and you aren't sacrificing CHR for skill, so it's easier to stay at the 110 threshold
this is just my opinion for a upgrade tier, a lot of it is probably wrong and anything said in this post should be considered total bullshit.
weapons: pick up a terra's staff and the HQ light one (forgot the name.. still too poor to afford), get a bugard strap, you're good.
head: would start with opo crown. good mp, good chr for a starter piece at 75. my #2 would be relic head. chr, and singing skill. excellent piece. #1 piece obviously is marduk's tiara.
neck: if you're windurstian, star necklace. #1 is wind torque, no contest.
Agreed with most of this. Staff Strap is preferable to Bugard Strap for any extended fight (-2 enmity > +1 CHR, and for what it's worth, it's got a bit more MP too, but I just addressed the notion of max MP). Add NQ Dark Staff to the list for resting purposes. Every mage, even ones that don't rest much like BRD, should have a Dark Staff.
Insert a Demon Helm between Opo-opo Crown and AF2 head.
Star Necklace is just as available to non-Windurstians, it's just possible they haven't done the prereq quests or gotten the fame. But yeah, it's more of an "until you can afford Wind Torque" sort of thing.
earrings: if you're elvaan or galka, you can use death earrings for mp, or musical earrings(+1) for CHR early on. optimally I would want a musical earring and loquacious
rings: need chr? get angel rings early on. later on you'll have no problem with chr, so pick up some nereid ring(s), if you have beaten ToAU, get a balrahn's ring.
Antivenom and Insomnia Earrings ace out Death Earrings for reasonable MP options these days. For higher-end MP earrings (again, max MP limitations blahblah), some good choices that have useful effects besides MP are Magnetic and Loquacious. Ideal for debuffing would be Musical + Singing or Musical + Wind.
Agreed on the ring evaluations, although some other useful rings include Minstrel's (beefiest casting speed reduction we can get, if you can maintain the latent HP: I often wear this full-time because of that and the limitations in alternative stats on rings) and, for those who do Einherjar, Omega Ring (3 CHR, 3 macc).
body: errant houpelaude is fine early, next in my list is yigit body. it's a great piece for intermediate use. osode is really only marginally better than houpelaude, so I wouldn't use this over yigit. my #1 piece here is definitely a manteel, no contest.
hands: early, just use your AF hands. they're fine. the best piece in this slot is definitely af+1 hands. get them right away.
Manteel is slightly better for casting speed than Yigit (but probably not millions upon millions of gil better), but you'd want to macro it out for debuffing for a better debuffing piece. It's not a bad combo casting speed/debuffing piece if you adamantly refuse to make yourself flicker with gear swaps (and admittedly, due to the exposed skin factor, you might not), but otherwise you can do better for debuffing with a gear swap.
Manteel's also got some haste on it, but it's really only for recasts for bards, and with the death of Mazurka hate tanking, that's kind of a non-issue. As for the other body pieces, I've already been addressing them at great length in this topic.
Hands, totally agreed. AF is really good, and AF+1 is just stupidly awesome.
legs: pick up a pair of sha'ir legs. they're pretty good, and better than NQ AF legs. next, you would want to upgrade and get AF+1 legs. they're great, and most BRD use these. the best piece would definitely be marduk, really no contest here.
feet: you have a lot of choices here. starting off, you could pick up some dance shoes(+1) or sha'ir feet. #2 would be rostrum pumps or zenith pumps, both are great. #1 is goliard clogs, no contest.
Sha'ir vs. AF legs is debatable, based primarily on how much CHR you already have in other slots. Sha'ir does offer 8 CHR, which is certainly nice, but it's really super easy to get a big glut of overkill CHR already, at which point the 3 skill is better. The 8 skill from AF+1 obviously trumps both.
As for Marduk vs. AF+1, that's about the same argument as Sha'ir vs. AF: are you willing to give up 3 skill for a bunch of CHR? Which depends on how much CHR you already have.
Feet, nothing is really super shiny besides Goliard, but the other options you listed are all good calls. Dance Shoes is more of an entry level thing, but Sha'ir, Rostrum, Zenith (and a few others from ToAU era whose names escape me) are all good.
back: unless you have a shit ton of CHR that you do not need at all, go with a jesters cape +1.
belt: gleeman's belt, definitely
feel free to call me an idiot for any of this
Jester's +1 is pretty much a constant standard except for those who can get an Astute Cape, for which it's a little more debatable because you *are* giving up one of the big huge CHR slots for the 5 singing skill there.
Waist is an obvious gimme, especially since Gleeman's Belt is so very very cheap.
