Problem: I need to pick up stuff to decide if it will improve my defense or not. For example I find "+2 shoes" and I cant remember if I have worse,same or better. So i press i to check, realize I have a "+0 boots" and I have no idea which one is better. so I press g to pick up the shoe, realize my inventory is full, so I drop something, pick up the shoes , press e to equip and check defense, realize it is worse, so i equip my boots back and drop the shoes, and pick up what i dropped to free space for the stupid shoes in my inventory. Doing this dance every time i find a defensive item is really boring after 20 levels.
Solution1: the grid or table on the top right could have numbers in each cell to let you know what defense it gives you. so you have a glove icon and a 7 next to , or in the corner of the icon to let you know its defense.
Solution2: the text that you see when stepping on an item could tell you if it is better or worse than what you have equipped. for example you have no gloves on and and step on a good one: "This is a +4 Iron Gloves (+7 defense)". same text could appear if you target it with the examine /pressing 'x' . The number could be red if worse, green if better and white if same defense than what you have now.