Item Drops and Finds Version 2 - Post BB

It's always been possible to get 7 above average. The max is 8 above average.
Went hand-in-hand with the old maker skill. You could forge an item that could gain up to 8 attack more than average (3 att from adv. diamond, up to 5 from a black crystal.) This also applied to items that you could find.

Originally, max was +5 from average.

Then gachapon came out, and items from Gacha only could be +7 from average. (or on low level items, 1 more than normal variation allowed - eg. PACs go from 0 to 4 with 2 as the average)

Then original Maker came out, which could go up to +13 from average (+5 due to normal variation, +5 due to BC, +3 due to diamond). There were quite a few Cravens in the 10-11 range presumably cause people have always spent way more on Claws.

I don't know when they changed normal drops to go past +5 from average.