Variant Gear/Equipment Rules

I like gold and gear to be slightly more important in my fantasy games than the core rules. Luckily it's very easy to shift items to more importance. 

The book has some sweet lists of prices for items. You can give equipment more mechanical punch just by giving items a bonus to certain specific rolls or defenses.

For instance, a good meal adds +2 to recovery rolls. Elegant clothes give a +2 to interactions with nobles. That gladiators sword makes a great gift for that governor who is also a gladiatorial enthusiast, giving the pc's a +2 bonus to their persuasion roll with him, etc. 

Some gear, like Thieves Tools, are required for certain actions or the PC either gets a -2 or simply can't perform the action. (Alternatively, the difficulty is one step higher without the proper gear.)

Apply the same rules to hirelings. No-one in the party with outdoorsman type skills? Hire a guide for a +2 to wilderness checks.

If you make gear more important, you should also make gear loss one of the fail forward options... Make the climb but lose your good rope, open the lock but ruin your thieves tools, etc. You make it through the woods, but the guide you hired has run off with your horse. 

These two things combined should give the PC's plenty of useful items to spend gold on besides just potions.