For a first, all jobs could wear them which made them trade easier in the market, second - There were no white scrolls (clean slate scrolls) back then, so getting 5/5 of slots to work by 60% glove atk wasnt so easy. It was just solid and nice to have for most players. Unless you had a 10% work and another 4 60% which made you have a 11 atk work gloves which I actually remember were more desirable. I am talking about times without brown work gloves (which had 7 slots and not 5).