I've seen a lot of people complaining about Gale's need for items, but it strikes me that of all of the items that you can feed him, they are an eclectic collection - varied enough that you will almost certainly have at least one or two that you aren't going to use or don't have a need for.... in fact they seem picked out specifically so that his need will not, in reality, be any kind of real burden.
In my most recent games I've not had anyone in the party using two-handers, so naturally the sword was an easy choice to give him, for example, and it cost me nothing.
I agree with you about Gale. Especially since there's no downside at this point to
not feeding him items. There's at least a couple things that are worthless, and not a problem to get rid of. The Necromancy of Thay does nothing for you, except give you the speak with the dead power, if you pass the rolls. But you can get that from the amulet, so that's pretty worthless. Even if you get better amulets for all your party members, you can carry the amulet and swap it in when needed. The amulet from Dror Ragzlin's chest is pretty worthless too. And I don't think the Hag's staff is all that great either, but you can hang onto it if you like. I'm sure there will be more useless stuff to feed him once we get past the first act. I'm sure there will be enough items you won't need, that you can feed to him to trigger whatever will happen at his story's resolution.
But I would not have fed him the Sword of Justice. Lae'zel could have used that even if your player character couldn't. Unless you're just not playing with her.
