Good insights
@GearedGeek
The problem ended up being the ItemType's category not matching the EquipUnequip category. I should have pointed you to the
Equip Unequip troubleshooting tips as that would have made this process a lot quicker but your issue is the second one listed. When you change the Equip Unequip's category you'll also want to change all of the equips (Equip Next, Equip Previous, etc) otherwise you'll get an error.
After you change that your character will start to equip, but it looks like there are some equip transition issues. To fix that on the Item component I disabled
Wait for Animation Event and instead use a timer (this is the third tip on the Equip Unequip page). This equips the item, but the equip animation repeats due to the animator controller setup. At least the item appears now though!