Good gear makes good pilots better. That's always the case and hardly a surprise. However, buying your victory - I think not.
I couldn't agree more. I'd go a bit further and argue that, unless you really know what you're doing, gear beyond plain tech 2 is almost counterproductive. On pretty much any scale I can think of (isk destroyed, bragging rights, etc), officer/deadspace fitted ships are a poor choice for PVP. They're expensive, so you have to destroy quite a few plain-fitted ships before you break even in cost invested versus cost spent. They appear from a PR perspective as an "I win" button, so they discount your wins while giving your enemies huge bragging points if they kill you. Most importantly (and this goes back to the "unless you really know what you're doing" bit), they can lead you to believe that it is your gear that is getting you victories rather than your tactics. I've known a few PVP pilots who have fallen into this trap: They feel great with their faction fitted ship, but if they lose it they feel useless until they can put together another. Meanwhile those of us flying plain T2 fitted Stabbers and Rifters just shrug off our losses and toss the market a nickel for another.