So pre 2.0, all the weapons, armor, cyberware, etc. had a level assigned to them in addition to the rarity that determined how big the numbers were, and it forced you to go through your vendor trash each time on the off chance that the numbers were better on any particular weapon you found. Now, every weapon of a particular type has the same parameters depending on rarity tier (white through gold) so if you have a higher tier of the same weapon, it's explicitly, if marginally better, and this keeps you from having to sort through 20-odd weapons every time you go sell, which drastically speeds up the process. Even more so if you stick with the unique iconic weapons, which can be upgraded with materials up to tier 5.

As a side-effect of this, the marginal increases can't boost the legendary item's damage that much higher than the common rarity, so even the most common weapons still deal adequate damage, so enemies aren't spongy like they used to be.