OK, I said I'd post comments on crafting, so here it goes. Don't mind the tone or the presentation too much, I don't have much time to polish this. I also tend to be blunt and to the point by nature, it's nothing personal.
Let's get the user interface stuff out of the way first. Could be helpful to keep in mind that, unless otherwise mentioned, I am talking about the RPG here, and that I play the Android app on a tablet (don't know if there's any other version/format out there).
In the crafting list, tapping on an
ingredient should pop up a description of the item. Just the description, with a Close button [X] in the corner, nothing else. This is so that we can easily get the name of any required item. For example, I'm obviously interested in crafting the Light Magic Wand that was added in the last update, but I couldn't tell what the required wand (or staff) is! Took me a good long while to find out that it is (probably) a Light Red Wand, and there's no reason for that kind of confusion. Should be easier to find out, makes discussion and out-of-game research a lot easier when you have a name. And that wouldn't require much coding effort, all the dialogs already exist, no?
[Now, to make said Light Red Wand somehow available would also be a good idea... duh. But I suppose that this is another story.]
When crafting some items, say a Steel Ingot for example, many similar items would typically be crafted at once. It would be cool if the dialog showing the Steel Ingot (the dialog that pops up when you tap the item to craft) would be modal, i.e. that it would not be dismissed every time you craft the item. There's already a close button on the dialog, so it can be easily dismissed when done, and it would make it so much easier and pleasant to craft 20 Steel Ingots in a row, for example, if one didn't have to bring up the dialog every time. Not that 20 Steel Ingots would be of much use right now given the impossibility to store stuff outside the backpack, but it's a start. I kinda remember crafting 15 boards, more than once...
I guess that this is a good time to introduce a request to have some sort of box, chest, bank vault, or whatever other form that storage may take to store items of no immediate use. I kinda liked the bank system in UO, where your stuff was magically accessible at any branch of the bank, anywhere in the world (and to any of your characters, important in MMO). But getting back my UO tower with all its chests would work too...
The idea goes beyond just storage, ya know. It's also about relinquishing some control of the game flow back to the player. Say I don't feel like bashing monsters today, I could instead be in the mood to go foresting and stockpiling finished boards, or ingots, etc... Very pointless if I can't store the fruits of my labor. Read ahead, it should make more sense later.
Once one has the ability to store his wealth, then it's time to introduce the most important change of all: make crafting a progressive skill. A new stat, completely independent of everything else. Not another place where to use your skill points (you could do that, but it would be tricky to balance and wouldn't work well unless you create craft-oriented characters, and that's a very big change, at least in RPG).
So your character starts in life with 0 crafting skill. Attempting to craft an item should always be possible, but the likelyhood of success would depend both on the difficulty level of the item and the character's crafting skill.
Basic items like metal ingots should have little or no skill requirement, so they could be successfully crafted by a beginner. Items like a Gold Plate or Iron Sword should on the other hand require a skilled craftsman, someone who has "paid his dues" and learned the trade before he would be likely to succeed.
Every time one succeeds in crafting an item, one gets a small increase in crafting skill. A simple task like crafting an ingot requiring no skill will obviously reward less than making a perfect Crystal Bow.
Also note that I would always make the probability of success greater than 0, thus allowing "lucky strikes" to occur. Something equivalent to the current probability of success for a Gold Plate, for example. Nothing anyone would normally care to try, but if one has a backpack full of ingots from grinding, then one could choose to "spend" his wealth by giving a go at some difficult item. That would be like buying a lottery ticket, if you will. In the improbable event of a success, the reward in crafting skill points could be substantial, thus motivating the player. And while unlikely to succeed, it's still a way to spend ingots produced for no specific reason (grinding).
I'd like to point out that crafting does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition either. In the event of a failure, not all of the ingredients have to be consumed at every attempt. Say that one fails at crafting a Crystal Bow, then one could "crush" only two or three diamonds instead of all five required. The amount of loss sustained should probably be governed by the difference between the character's crafting skill and the item's difficulty. In other words, a very skilled craftsman would lose little or no materials, while a noob attempting to craft a Gold Plate would probably lose all of his gold ingots in a failed attempt.
I would also remove the level requirements recently introduced on crafting, no more having to be of level 150 to craft an Iron Sword. Make it difficult to craft all you want, but make it craft-able by anyone with enough skill, irrespective of the character's level. If a new player chooses to "begin in life" by becoming a craftsman and building up his/her wealth, then let it be. That person will have to gain sufficient fighting skills to gain access to the mines anyway, and if the difficulty levels required are
reasonably high, the rarity of items will be preserved. It just gives some degree of freedom in how one wants to play the game.
You should also realize that the changes described above would go a long way in fixing the drop rate problem for certain items. Set the difficulty level to a reasonable (yet achievable!!) level for Blitz Boots, and you can raise the drop rate on stingers without affecting the exceptional nature of the boots. That would take some of the tedium away in "mining" for stingers. Ditto for many other items, like those @#$%!! exoskeletons.
It's worth pointing out that this immediately opens up opportunities for trade to newcomers in the MMO. If a new character wants to build his early crafting skills by producing Steel Ingots, he can store them in his vault until there's enough to trade and then find an interested buyer. Of course, simple items like that probably would fetch little value, if any, but if more valuable items craft-able from steel are introduced, then steel trade might just take off! Skilled craftsmen might prefer to trade ingots for finished goods rather than go mining themselves. Anyway, the idea is there, and it has worked magic in other games.
Speaking of mining (or cutting wood), this activity should probably give some crafting skill points too. Not much, but some. And the ore yield (both frequency and quantity) should increase with skill. Note that mining is a skill in itself in UO, but then there were 7 types of ore in various grades...
The last change you should bring to the crafting system is quite simple. Be warned, though, if you do this without fixing the rest you'll either have a riot on your hands or see people defecting massively. Just have the smitty hang a "back in 5 minutes" sign on his door every time the game starts. Simple, but no more cheating in crafting. Either put in the effort or don't, but no more cutting corners if every attempt takes 5 minutes. But, again, that means realistic success rates on every item, less than 20% for a skilled craftsman should be
extremely rare.
Anyway, me, I would implement this last measure only after the rest was done and proven, not before. Don't be silly and discourage more players.
There's a lot more to be said about all this, but let's hear what you think first. Take the time to think about it and you'll realize that there is very little coding required to implement the changes, except perhaps for the bank/storage scheme, and even that is not the end of the world. Most of the work required would actually lie in the math and scoring, and I perhaps can find time to help there.
) one of the things that drew me into this game (when it was MUCH, MUCH smaller than it is now) was that the dev didn't seem to be money hungry... he cared more about developing the game than making a quick buck (this is still true btw) and through working as mod /admin and developing some content, I have kind of gotten to know him a bit, and regard him as a friend, so I get irritated when people accuse him of that "just tries to squeeze money from the players" thing, it's simply not true... before this last update, there was almost no "purchasable" gear at all lol, and none of it was high level.. you're right that he did set the best robe created off of a purchasable one, but he did also introduce a new "in - game" robe which was higher level than anything previously available either way... also, in the end, we can enjoy the entire game with no restrictions whatsoever without ever spending a penny (many do) 
several have been discussed before, and I'm pretty sure you've got some new stuff here too - I haven't the time to comment in detail right now, but do want to say a few quick things.