Here's an anecdote, maybe a bit unrelated but it demonstrate my feelings on the server's economic system.
Back in the days Cherry n Jimmy were star Vardos, selling their items left and right, Ric bitched me out because i was selling items for too *low* price. "Oy you could have gotten 10k for that etc etc" and i replied "The idea isnt' to force the player to farm rats for a week, meanwhile some higher level farmer can buy it ten times, the idea is to create an interaction between the merchant and the buyer." and that is what i believe in. Price inflation and deflation etc is only a natural process, i don't stock up on potions, i don't limit how many people can buy. Why? Because they'll always buy what i have and won't if i don't. It makes little difference if i sell ten today and none tomorrow. I can try and be fair, but in the end, it's the interaction that matters. The roleplay.
Here we have a crunching number system that's bothersome and terribly irritating to new players. *forcing* the ones that want to be a gilder/smith, to spend so long in their smithy that they either give up or never see the light of the day. It's easy to say they aren't forced to do it, but what if they want to? Since when the server has been about winning? It's easy to say nobody can be as awesome as xyz, but if this game is still about having fun and enjoy the roleplay, and not about farming ore and LFG SILVER MINE NEED ROUGE, well, the system should be more friendly toward all the players.
I'm done with this anyways. Like someone said, since i don't smith it's not my problem, right?