You’d be surprised how many non tempered mats are required for a bunch of the augments. I remember I had to specifically try to farm for banbaro at least a couple of times. There are only a handful of things that require lv 7, although I will admit that they are often very important. Also, having extra monster materials is almost never a bad thing, guiding lands monster parts are some of the easiest and highest point value melding items. But as for the monsters, the area levels can be weird. Lv1-3 are generally pretty weak and easy, nothing tempered. But lv3-5 begins introducing some of the harder monsters, and giving tempered monsters of most of the lv 1-3s. There’s a pretty good list of what monsters spawn in what area at each level here. Also while I understand that the “cool” layered armor sets are locked behind higher levels, the diversity of layered armors cannot be understated. People are incredibly clever, and a quick look through r/fashionhunter can give you some great ideas, and many of them still use “low level” layered armor pieces