Highorbit:- nice idea. I vaguely proposed an Engineer shop terminal a few pages back in this thread, with the idea that it could contain widgets for customising items. What would you say to the idea of an Engi terminal in the trade departments to sell the base parts for your time-limited items?
Ferria:- I agree with that vast majority of your post, especially your points on Lvl 200 trade characters and item creation. One thing about the prices PPPE's are going for though - I don't think the prices would be anything like to high if the credit exploit hadn't been running for as long as it has. That little glitch has been in place since beta apparently, so a huge proportion of the cash currently circulating probably originated as a dupe. Without that artificial devaluation of the currency it's unlikely that PPPE's and other rares would fetch anything like the prices they do.
Still, although it's certain that duping is responsible for at least some of the inflation, only Funcom knows for certain how much money has been duped in this way. Bit of a moot argument from that point of view, but perhaps something to think about.
Cheers,
~R~