I would say add attributes to items only if it's affected by a skill.
Because the average person is not going to pick up a piece of Metal/wood/fabric/plastic and know anything about it.
What type of material is your desk made out of?
If you guessed MDF (meium density fibreboard)you are probably right, most furniture is now made of MDF. How well do you think MDF responds to water? Not well at all.
The average person probably would have responded, pine, oak, or even plywood(not a type of wood!), not knowing anything about it.
Same goes for plastic or metal. If I were to set bronze and copper of the same size and shape in front of the average person do you think they'd be able to tell the difference?
My point being, knowing things like that takes experience.
Gmes like WOW,AOC,DF, etc. take all the fun and mystery out of crafting, in those systems 1+1=2, but why can't 1+1=395?
or 45+8=2?
Figuring things out is half the fun in a new game, and is a large part of sandboxes.