And now I'm running Tam-Tara with a pug...
Holy crap this is a nightmare. A tank and a healer that seem to be trying to play like they're DPS, so the tank is never holding aggro, and the heals... aren't.
I know its late, but if you still need a tank I can jump on real quick.
Hang on to that materia. The lower level stuff is important for over melding. You probably already know, but that's when you meld more materia than the gear has slots. Each piece of gear has a limit of how much of a particular stat can be added. A lot of people start out with a level IV materia in the first slot, maxing out the particular stat the gear has the capacity for, then use the lower level materia for slots 3, 4, & 5. Two reasons they do this, because they may be close to maxing out the stat and only need 1-2 points to cap it, and because failure rates go up for the extra slots and you would go broke trying to fill those later slots with expensive materia.
Actually I had no idea you could overmeld an item, so im glad i've hung onto all that extra stuff now.