A lot of the items are junk. They're randomly generated, after all. Some are rather sneaky ones, though. There was a robe I got once that gave a huge boost to skill power but also drained HP. I put on some items that regen'ed HP so it only drained a little but that plus a little incidental damage meant my mage was dead half way through the battle. If I had had a little more regen, though, or if I had dumped the dwarf for the druid and his healing powers, it might have worked out very nicely.
Anyway, yeah, there's plenty of junk - so just turn them into gems and improve your items with them. If you haven't gotten the ability to improve items via their slots yet, you soon will.