If you're willing to play with mods, then there has been a mod called "Reduced Number Bloat" created by someone on here a while back. It handles stat scaling in a way so that HP and armor values of everyone don't go up as fast and basically you won't have to replace gears so often. Depending on your option it might get rid of item hunting almost completely. From others' feedback, I get the impression the mod does a really neat job.
Here it is if you want to try it:
DOS2 - Reduced Number Bloat 
