There are lots of different attributes for each piece of equipment: whether it's a favored track, the quality of the equipment, its level, its base points, and its special skill. Some of these are described vaguely, such as "greatly increases points earned" versus simply "increases points earned", so it's difficult to know how much of a difference it makes.
It seems that whether the course is a favored course or not for that equipment makes the most difference, but maybe using something that benefits from jump boosts on a track with a ton of jumps makes a big difference, too. So how should I prioritize these attributes? Assume my only goal is to get the most points possible for the race.
What I'm looking for as an answer is something like,
Pick a driver in the tier with the most possible items it can get at once, then between those course the one that's the highest level, then choose one with the most base points, and you can ignore the particular special skill it has because doesn't really matter.
except in an order that's actually going to generally give me the most points. Maybe base points don't really matter and the special skill matters a lot, for instance.