My Accessory Calculator includes recommended recipes for leveling accessories and allows you to directly compare accessories against each other. The Accessory section of the guide already includes a list of stats, roughly in order of priority. Accessory Quest 5 should be released at the end of December; if there's interest and I have time, I might update the guide with further content (such as set bonuses).
Rank 4 can be more trouble (read: time-consuming) than it's worth unless it's your main element. Many users prefer to auto-battle rank 3. For marginal teams, I recommend bringing Provisional Forest (e.g., Shingen with Soul weapon) so you can burn through the Rage phase in 1 turn. In the days before Shingen, I used Gaia to nullify the first Rage overdrive, which also works. Morgan's Berserk (with Soul weapon) is also an effective way to burn through this phase, especially if you have high attack rate.
I actually main Wind these days, but I was able to clear all elements (including 2/3 Thunder phases) with a rainbow squad (Water-focused) back in the day. It's much simpler and quicker to just bring Provisional Forest and a good weapon grid though. The main disadvantage of running against the same-element is increased debuff resist rate; this can be compensated for by bringing Sphinx or Vicissitudes of Fortune to decrease affliction resistance.