I think equipment should take damage. In the real world, equipment needs maintanance, but not in the CW world. That's why I think we need a hardware repair system. As it stands, your computer never needs backing up or defragged or anything; just added on to. Nothing ever permanently damages anything. You've got hackers mucking about in your system on a relentless basis and that isn't going to end up breaking or wearing out some of your parts? C'mon, let's be at least semi-realistic.
Give equipment a point value similar to a life bar, lets say for example: 50 points. The more battles you lose, the more points your defensive equipment(RAM) loses; the more battles you win, the more points your attack hardware loses(HDD). Damaged equipment must be repaired or it starts losing a percentage of it's power until it reaches XX%, at which ppoint it becomes disabled until repaired, or in some cases, destroyed and needs replaced.
Or, have a cumulative percentage for you to sustain computer/hardware damage while battling. A small one, like a .05% or .01% chance. The more battles you do, the more likely it is that you will have to fix something inside your machine, rather than just booting up your apparently useless firewall. Hit that percentage during a battle, and a message comes up "you have sustained battle damage" and you lose 5 points per level (the bigger you are, the more there is to break.)
As a side note to the 'added realism' aspect, this would also help draw cash out of the game.