While I don't doubt that there are some perpetual Journeymen, you're not supposed to get stuck there long term. The term "Perpetual" on its own is almost always used as a shorter form of "Perpetual Apprentice". Journeymen are also literally not allowed to return to the Colleges and are kept apart from most of their old support systems, thus not being enriched, but also not enriching the institution of collective magical research and education.
You do actually see a lot getting stuck there. We have explicit word of Journeymen literally going to the next town over and settling down to be the local fortuneteller or message runner.
What we're actually looking at is a career track that looks like:
-Apprentice
--Perpetual Apprentice
--Battle Wizard
---Magister Lord
--Journeyman
---Magister
----Magister Lord
And aside from the Apprentice, there's no obligation to advance on any schedule.
A Journeyman has their Diploma and can find wizard(or non-wizarding) jobs anywhere, they just aren't permitted back in the College until they proved themselves. Yes, they're out of the College academic ecosystem, and they can't make use of the College's services, but for someone with no interest in advancement this isn't really a problem at all. A Journeyman can request their Master provide them with further educational materials in writing, and their Master would fork out the necessary expenses
if they think its worthwhile.
Or they might figure that the Journeyman is too static and refuse to send new spells until the Journeyman moves on. This does not in any way matter to a Journeyman with no interest in Magisterhood. One who does would be working on research papers(which would require going out there to find things to research), adventuring or otherwise testing their limits.
Or the Journeyman could literally just fuck off to Cathay on foot and be missing, presumed dead for fifty years before wandering back without any pants but armed with self learned Battle Magic. That works too.
Honestly, of all the Colleges, the Grey College is the least likely to want to hand a Journeyman some enchanted armor. What are you doing getting stabbed, dumbass, you're supposed to be pretending to be a cabbage farmer - something made much harder if you have a magic item that screams "hey I'm a Grey Wizard!"
The Grey College has the most difficulty with any kind of 'standard' enchanted items I think. Its one of the colleges with the biggest focus on 'mundane' skills - Most Ulgu spells would breed horrible habits in an infiltrator, spy or scout unless they learned to do it the hard way OR can cast it themselves(and thus cannot be deprived of it).
Pall of Darkness might work as an emergency bug out, but its hardly going to suffice without a followup tactic - the darkness doesn't last very long, and impairs the wizard as much as anyone else.
This, coupled with the relative lack of Grey Enchanters and the surface level anti-materialism of the College means they won't be making anything enchanted. The Amethysts probably have the same issue.
By contrast, the Brights are the "Enchanter" college, and have a curriculum which is basically Burn Bright or Burn Out. They have the enchanting throughput to outfit their Journeymen with enchanted items or staves.
The Gold, Light and Celestial College come at it from the angle of lacking a need - most of their Journeymen stick to urban centers to provide services, anyone seeking combat out is expected to be able to prepare themselves.
The Amber and Jade Colleges are continuations of ancient cults, and they're going to be following more closely the initiation rites of said cults, which include proving you can survive on your own in the wilderness.
So at the end of it you'll see probably the following categories getting armed out of their apprenticeships:
-Brights - Murder implement of Master's Choice.
-Lights - Those aimed at a more martial approach of hunting down necromancers and cults may be armed with an emergency Banish or Heal in a can, but it depends on the individual Master.
-Golds - You shouldn't need it, if you do, make it yourself.
-Celestials - You shouldn't need it, if you do, you should know better.
-Jades - Nature will provide.
-Ambers - Nature will provide.
-Amethysts - Nothing easy to enchant and useful to their career path.
-Greys - Nothing easy to enchant and useful to their career path.
