What if stat based Pre/sufs provided a % bonus of the stat they were giving instead of a flat amount and % based damage items provided a flat damage amount.

Let's say Tier 6 pre/suffs gave 1% of the stat they intended to buff, orc would give 25 str to a character with 2500 str and effectively increase their damage 1%. This makes a lot more sense, now an orc item might be useful.

The downside is what? A lower level character wouldn't get the benefit a higher level character would.

This is remedied by changing % based damage to a static amount of damage.

Let's say Dragon does a static 20 bonus damage to a monster that is affected by fire damage. This will have a lot more benefit for a low level character who has less strength. The higher-level character doesn't get as much of an advantage by having higher stats effectively multiplied by using piles of +20% damage.

This model would give more benefit to new players wishing to level, while rewarding players who have achieved higher levels with a use for their items & stats.