Focus effects (Burning Affliction, Enhanced Damage, ect..) weren't introduced until Luclin and the effects were added to many items after the fact. So despite the fact that an item may be Velious era, it did not have the focus effect on them until after Luclin dropped.
This is announcing that Luclin will add in the focus items
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/eve.../1100-2780291/
This is Allah trying to handle the focus items having been added. June 2002
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=951
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020605a.html
Added 'focus' effects to over 150 existing items.
This is when the focus effects were retroactively added to Velious/Kunark/Vanilla gear
Luclin happened Dec. 2001.
As much as I'd love it to be different, Spell Focus Items didn't exist according to this servers timeline. They should only be added in as post-classic custom content.