Well that's why you just don't "really deck out" thugs. SCs are worth the investment, thugs aren't. You can spend 15 gems (10 with a hammer!) to put a decent 1h weapon and shield on a Bane Lord, and they become perfectly survivable for the applications you want them for. Double your gem investment, and you do not get double the performance, so just double your manpower instead. 2 Bane Lords with new weapon and shield will outperform pretty much any single Bane Lord with the same investment.
Late in the game if you have gems coming out of your ears, and you can't access any/enough real SC chassis, then sure, start really gearing out Bane Lords and/or Spectres, cause you gotta make do with what you have. But early game? If I wanted to get fancy, I'd give em a Luck Pendant. If I had bazillions of water gems, maybe I'd be convinced to throw a Bottle of Living Water to provide some backup. Helm/Armor/Boots will never be touched unless I'm going whole hog, which I never get tempted to do with a Bane Lord. They're only 12D, if you get lucky with a Conj bonus site, you can even field them naked, I've seen worse things on the battlefield.
