Honestly, is there anything "wrong" with having ridiculous, overpowered characters in a single player game? It may make the game imbalanced, but for some people, that's part of the fun. I had a blast in Final Fantasy X-2 (don't judge me!) after playing through the game a few times, having 2x Iron Dukes equipped to each character, Yuna having 30,000+HP and Trigger Happy being able to kill anything in the game (10x 99,999 dmg hits. Oh yeah).

Was it completely broken? Yeah. Did the game lose any and all challenge it presented? Yeah. But you know what? I had a blast with the game when it WAS challenging the first few times I played through it, unlocking all the secrets, and choosing different paths each time. What kept me playing beyond that was being able to get multiples of ridiculous items (Iron Dukes) and all the other crazy things.

To use another example, what was left in the GTA games after you got 100% completion? Did you just stop playing? I know myself, as well as a lot of other people with the game, decided to enter crazy cheat codes and go nuts in the world. How fun would that have been if you were limited to what was directly available to you in the game? Not quite the same experience.

I can respect wanting to preserve "balance" in the game for people who want to play through as such, but honestly. What's the harm in letting people go even further in the game if they chose to do so? It's not like you have to compromise the game's integrity and objectives by allowing it.

Going back to my X-2 example (bare with me here), you had to navigate 100 floors of a ridiculously hard zone (Via Infinito) to get to 2 equally ridiculously hard bosses back-to-back (Paragon/Trema) in order to obtain the Iron Duke. The item you got completely broke the game, but you'd be hard pressed to get it less than your 3rd time playing through the game as well as the fact you've already proved your ability to beat the hardest content available in the game to receive such an item.

Sorry to rant about a game most of the gamer community seems to dislike, but I felt the example was merited. Basically, why restrict your userbase from partaking in fun activities just because it might make a certain segment of the game too easy on their 3rd time playing the game? 'Cuz in all my experience, such things only keep people playing longer. Isn't that a good thing?