I mean yeah, basically.
The question arises for heroes like Abashi. Maybe a Dragon's Skull could be hauled back to one of your cities to give + culture and - war weariness?
For mage heroes, generally their staves or grimoires I'd say.
OH, idea!! What if a hero's equipment was made more powerful if that hero was more powerful? I'll use Govannon to illustrate this.
Govannon's equipment is his Spellbook. It may be given to any unit, and that unit with be able to cast level I spells. The spells allowed by the spellbook are the level I spells that govannon could cast last time he had the spellbook.
Or Kael Coalbane's grimoire. It gives any summonerer or conjurer free spells, based on the spells that Kael knew when he last had the grimoire.
but this works for any other piece of equipment too. Generally, I think we could have 4 levels of each equipment.
Level 1 is what the hero starts with. Level 2 is what the equipment becoems when the hero gets combat II. Level 3 at Combat IV. Level 4 at heroic defense or attack II.
So i'll use orthus' axe to demonstrate this.
level 1: +1 fire
level 2: +1 movement
level 3: Blitz
level 4: +1 fire again
so if orthus gets to combat V, but is then killed, his axe will permanently give its bearer +1 fire, +1 move, blitz.
Or the Empty Bier. (donal lugus)
level 1: +1 defense
level 2: bodygaurd
level 3: +1 defense
level 4: resists fire and unholy damage
I know that this is a lot more design work, but i think it would be worth it because it shows that the equipment is linked to the hero. Also it wouldn't be too hard, because we really only need three simple effects for each equipment, and one would be duplicated. (or some equipments could have fewer levels)