Are Journalist Weapons/Armor considered "cheese"?

Okay, sorry for what may be a dumb question, but does the community generally consider the weapons and armor found in the Journalist stashes "cheese" (e.g. overpowered and unbalanced). Quick backstory: My brother made a bet with me that I won't play Stalker 2 for 500 hours. I'm already at 100 so he's going to loose.

But then he said, "Wait, what are you doing? You're wearing the Mercenary Light Armor (from the Journalist stash) and that's cheese." (Right, this from the guy who runs across the map to get the Bear scanner as soon as he can.) I did a hard save and started comparing weapons. There is literally NO difference between, say the Viper-5 in-game and the Journalist version. I also compared the M60 cracker. The only difference is a very small weight difference for the Journalist version ... and I mean very small, like .4 or something.

Now the Merc light armor is significantly better than anything else I've come across so why wouldn't I wear it? If there's something I'm missing here, please tell me because I really don't see any real difference. Thanks!