The way I'm fixing it is basically mixing the current VoP stat, defense, and weapon boosts and the soulmeld progression of the Incarnate, but with different flavor. Stripping it of the class features of the Incarnate of course, so the essentia cap is the normal by level unless you take Improved Soulmeld Capacity, which actually will be a different feat. Also eliminating the prereq feat and its status as exalted (because since when do you have to be super good to take a VoPov?). Also, I might eliminate the Soul chakra as a bind option. I probably will, since all of the others should be plenty to rival the wealth of the items.
What this does is it stops trying to emulate items, and provides different boosts. So you give up the benefits of some items, and at the same time have all the basic necessities that items grant (stat, armor, weapon boosts). You then gain the different benefits of a slightly advanced (yet also slowed) stat progression, five feats (feats at 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20, any feat you meet the prereqs of, slowed down because unrestricted bonus feats are more powerful than highly restricted ones...it's also less abusable by spellcasters using the Chaos Feat Shuffle), a smaller deflection and NA bonus to AC, the equivalent of Bracers of Armor, and whatever you decide to meld. These grant you misc. boosts that misc. items grant you: skill boosts, attack/damage boosts, flight, detection abilities, etc.
What it would be by the numbers:
the soulmelds, essentia, and chakra binds of an Incarnate, the stat progression of VoPov, the armor progression of VoPov, the weapon progression following below, +1 deflection to AC at every multiple of 5 level, +1 NA at every multiple of 4, and feats at 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. I'm not so sure about the feats, primarily because it eliminates the penalty for taking the feat other than the whole "you don't have items anymore!" bit. So I might just nix that.
Weapons: at 3 and every 2 levels afterwards (so a total of +9) you gain a +1 bonus to apply to a weapon. It takes 24 hours to change the bonuses you have. You can apply any weapon special ability you qualify for on it, but must still follow the +1 first rule. To apply the bonus to two weapons you reduce the bonus each gets by 1, and this continues until 5 weapons (or +5 each), at which time all weapons are +5 (every weapon after that is a +6 weapon, so you can have 1 +9, 2 +8s, 3 +7s, 4 +6s, 5 +5s, or 6+ 5s, 7 +5s, and so on).
Personally, I think that with the feats and soul chakra bind it's a tad too powerful, but without the feats and soul chakra it's a tad underwhelming (but about on target power wise, if not a tad short). With the soul chakra it kinda replaces the Incarnate, but not totally since they can get an essentia cap of double what these guys get. Without the soul chakra but with the feats it's probably a tad too much, but well within reason, since I strongly believe that a feat should not allow a fighting style, only enhance it (I hate Weapon Finesse from a design stance).