Equipment selection is dependent upon personal preference and intended usage. The monk's primary attack attribute is Dexterity.
Relevant information can be found in this question, but essentially each stat has a use outside of damage calculation:
- Dextertity = Dodge
- Strength = Armor
- Vitality = Health
- Intelliegence = Resistances
Elemental attack stats are useful if you can discern enemy elemental affinity.
Other stats to be concerned about are Money Find and Rare Find which are useful for farming cash or rare equips/components respectively.
Attack rate increases your DPS, but more importantly it decreases the amount of time between attacks which is important for attacks with effects like stunning the enemy for example.
Health for each kill or health from orbs increases will serve to keep you healthy.
XP bonuses from kills will help you level faster.
Spirit regen is useful if you use your abilities a lot.
Movement speed is extremely useful for attacking and exploring and running away.
Straight damage or armor increases are very straightforward to understand and can be compared mostly straight across against primary attack stat and Strength for the most part.
Subjective opinion to follow:
Personally, I don't worry about it too much. I try to boost magic or money find as much as possible in order to find better base stat equipment and/or materials. As far as other stats, my personal preference is to boost Dex because it boosts both attack and evasion. I try to raise my attack whenever possible because if you kill the enemies before they hit you, your defense wasn't really helping. I also like to keep some movement speed boost on because it is extremely useful.
If the items in question have identical names and the Unique Equipped flag above their required level, then you will only be able to equip one of them, regardless of their stats.
Best Answer
Yes, you can craft fist weapons later, just continue upgrading your blacksmith. In fact the first fist weapon is available from level 3 - which is what you have - so you're only a few upgrades away from it (remember each level has multiple inner sublevels, each unlocking its own recipes).
Here is a full list of all craftable fist weapons along with their level requirement, blacksmith's level requirement, and component list. To summarize the level requirements: