Sony cameras suck - they have EVFs I can't tolerate.
The point is, all three elements are crucial, meaning you can't do the job without all of them (and all have to be capable of the job). Therefore saying one is more important than the other is akin to saying the wings on your airliner are more important than the flight controls or engines. Well, you need them all, so they are all equally important.
I agree. I started as a general purpose photog, then did winter sports, then did wedding, then did portraiture and now mainly photo story and video. Regardless of how great I was as a photographer, I always had to replace or upgrade my gear every time I changed. The wedding gear were not buffy and long enough for sport, the sport gear were too heavy for portraiture on top of the need for strobe and softbox, and the 5D III didn't have DPAF and in-body stabilization for run and gun videography. My bank account confirms that you are right, gears and photographers are equally important.
However, I know a friend photographer who still uses a 5D II and delivers better results than me using a 1DX II. That is because his scene staging and model posing techniques are flawless, compared to mine.
Do you need to upgrade your gear or do you need to spend money (and time) for training? The answer to that is very personal. My opinion, he values more training that's why he assigned a 70% to it. I need both so I will assign it 50/50. And the guy who can shoot pond hockey games with a cellphone needs to find a psychiatrist.