Also, as an aside, the parcel system helps highlight a semi-frustrating issue with items in general in 4.0. Specifically, you are supposed to get an item about every 4 out of 5 levels... but if you want to continue to keep up with your upgrades, at least 3 of the 4 items are spoken for: weapon, armor, neck. That leaves precious little time to accumulate interesting or fun items - especially with stuff like the iron armbands, which are practically required and ALSO need to be upgraded every 10 levels.
I find you're much better off doing everything you can to skip an upgrade toward the beginning - like skipping your +1 armor or neck item - in an effort to save your precious "buys" for those non-big-3 items, especially since levels 6-9 have a lot of great stuff to choose from for your other slots. Another tactic is to just purchase plain magic equipment until you get much higher in levels; you save a ton on your "buys", and a lot of the good properties and powers aren't available until the mid-levels anyway. In other words: you don't gain much by getting that level 4 sword instead of just a level 1 sword most of the time, so save that higher level item buy for something better. Then, get a level 14 sword with a better property when the time comes.
Again, this is not a reflection on the parcel system, just on how 4.0 works. In fact, I think the parcel system is more than fair when it comes to items: the only downside is that it favors people who enjoy planning out what you get for the next several levels.