I really don't see why the devs are so stuck in not letting so many items be sold on the auction house, they are sold anyway with mercs so what's the point? Mercs openly shout to sell their services and nobody cares so why not go the whole hog?
Allow items be drop without the ex tag and they only become locked to you when you equip them. Until equipped once, any weapon, armor or whatever else can be sold on the auction house.
It gives the hardcore players a serious revenue of gil and a reason to keep playing and lets casual players farm gil to get items they normally would not be able to.
On a previous MMO I did this, I had a static group and I cleared the hardest dungeons and sold the drops on the broker. It was the only reason many of us still played and we used the money to make the highest tier crafted weapons.