Gear Tiers and Reforging for Hardcore

This is something that I saw once in a mod pack long ago and I think would be an amazing addition to Hardcore Minecraft.

Gear Tiers:

• Five tiers for each piece of gear across all material types (leather, gold, iron, etc).
• The tiers could be called anything, but for simplicity I will call them Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary.
• Each tier would have randomized stats, getting opportunities for better stats at higher tiers, but also the possibility of getting a Rare tier with stats worse than the Uncommon tier stats you had before.

Reforging:

• A method of re-rolling the tier/stats of any piece of gear using the materials required to repair the item, as well as separate materials required for reforging.
• Three different materials used for reforging specifically. One that gives low odds of getting better tiers/stats but is commonly found, one that gives moderate odds but is a bit harder to find, and one that gives the best odds but is very rare.
• Reforging can be done with an existing table (anvil, grindstone, smithing table, etc.) through a new menu, or using a new item/block.

Keeping these shorter than I'd like to, due to the 1500 character limit, but I am of course open to suggestions on how we could improve this system further. I will have a lot of posts coming out with several ideas across them that I've been writing in my notes for a while now.

Thank you for reading!