Except no one bothered repairing at a merchant when you had level 40+ gear, and just shouted or stood around with your flag up for some nice crafter in Ul'dah to come help repair you.
In 1.0, you got dark matter from dungeon runs, treasure chests, and other things that didn't involve spending money. By the end of 1.0, I had more than 2 stacks of G5s from running dungeons and primals. Additionally, you could request repairs for extremely cheap, never costing more than 500g per item w/ a grade 5 dark matter. That's only 50g currently.
In 2.0, the only way you can repair items are through NPCs or buying dark matter. Grade 5 costs 350g each (that's old 3.5k) if you can repair your own gear, and NPC repairs cost something like 5k (old 50k) for a full set to be repaired at lv 50.
Repair bills are seriously astronomical in price now compared to 1.0. Fixing this aspect alone would improve things imo.
I like this idea. If G5s were the HQ version of G4 from Mining or Botany, that would be more acceptable. SOMETHING where we can acquire G5s from the game that isn't from spending gil or seals.
