Timers and Status Durations

This is starting to make more sense as I go along. Really appreciate all the replies. On the subject of status effects, while messing with usME to test the status timers, I noticed something else. Maybe it's common knowledge but it didn't occur to me until I ran into it.

I was assigning the negative statuses to equipment via the Item editor (in the adv tab) to try to quickly inflict my characters with effects. It seems like the second row of statuses (Condemned, Image, Mute, Berserk, Muddle, Sleep, etc) cannot be applied to weapons, but will work when checked on anything else (Shields, Armor, Helmets, Relics). I didn't try them all out, but the first row of statuses seem to work on weapons. For example, I checked off Stop on a weapon and the character equipping it started with Stop in a battle.

Is there any particular reason for this differentiation and is it possible at all to make these work for weapons? Also, is it possible to make a character start with one of those statuses innately without the use of equipable items? For example, making a character start with Condemned status every battle. I searched around a bit and it sounds like things like Dog Block and Magi-Tek can be applied through events but I couldn't find anything for certain statuses such as Condemned.