I'm a pretty dedicated harvester/crafter, and before I created my guys, I came up with a plan based on everything Outlands and their unique skills have to offer. Forcing a gathering skill onto a primarily PvM character was NEVER a good idea, and should never have been part of anyone's master plan. However, adding PvM skills to a Miner you were already going to create (because you like to mine and craft) offers unique opportunities rarely found in the freeshard universe. My harvesting and crafting skills are spread throughout my characters so I could take advantage of their unique gifts. My Tailor is turning out to be a pretty good archer, my carpenter is a beast with a club, my lumberjack swings a pretty devastating axe, etc. They are all tailor-made the way I planned from the beginning. If this were any other shard, I might have considered sticking all of the crafting skills onto the same character who sits at home or the bank all day, but that is NOT how I wanted to play on Outlands, and I'm really enjoying the hell out of it.
I just crafted my (probably one and only) set of Artisan armor and very much look forward to leveling it up.
ALL of that being said... I would certainly like to see some sort of mechanic built into leveling the gear that ties into gathering and crafting specifically. The trick will be to find something that can't be exploited, because if there is a way at all to exploit and cheat... some UO dickhead will find it. If a solution can't be found... I'm perfectly fine with that.
