How about letting us construct armor too? Rather then hunting left and right to find specific pieces, we could make them or HIRE someone to make them.

Ditto with vehicles. In that particular case, make it a pain in the rear to construct, but the overall cost to construct should be a margin lower then the cost to outright buy it from the stores. Heck, this should be a requirement for ANY item you can make. It makes no sence to construct some of the items you can make because people can more or less buy them cheaper in the stores.