Hi-

Right now, it seems like most people just pick the crafting skill whose stats most fit their characters. What if rather than dividing crafting based on stats, divide them based on slots and origin. So, you'd specialize in Mystical Offensive items (which means you can make mystical offensive slots with offensive devices and offensive power replacers). Then, people would be forced to trade and buy rather than just making their own gear. Players might get a small bonus to energy efficiency, health, or damage if all their gear comes from their origin. If you wanted, you could break it down even further by stats so you'd choose Mysticism, Offensive, and then one of the specializations geared toward a stat.

The idea is to limit what people can make by slot to encourage trading. I'd still allow everyone to make their own bags and then costume pieces I'd have be their own items (not tied to an actual item). That way, you could make level 40 costume unlocks and then trade them to anyone (of any level) to bind to themselves. Either that or make costume pieces from crafting account wide.

It's unlikely something this radical would be undertaken, since how would the game re reimburse people based on how much time they've already put into the current crafting system?

But it's the only way I can think of to make the crafting system into a more functional economy. One thing that'd really help the economy is some decent sort functions on the auction house (by price, etc).