NPC Sword and Shield no longer synchronised?

[ffcmike]

It seems showcharacter NPCs where sword and shield variables are set serverside are no longer being sent to the client, is this something that's intended?

This is somewhat if an inconvenience due to the fact that I actually set these synchronised variables serverside where it makes sense so that it's only the specific variables sent to the client and less script.
Albeit it's a guess that this is the more efficient thing to do as opposed to having such a script entirely clientside, clarification would also be good.