While #3 on your list is its own little thing, I completely agree on 1 and 2. Totally ignoring perception also makes them exploitable, just gear up for max gathering to abuse the system.

I'm 100% behind putting material rewards or just some kinds of rewards on the gathering leves. Gathering classes can't provide some items which need to be present in much higher quantities (looking at you Mob-Drop Only's) and allowing us _some_ way to provide that service for other players/classes would certainly add value to our roles.

As it stands I haven't really bothered with more than ten gathering leves because they're just inefficient. Grinding DoW's is far more frustrating and less rewarding than grinding gathering so I'm more likely to use them there (or you can dungeon... or FATE... or Guildhest... or quest). And DoH leves can throw almost an entire level at you (for the cost of some materials). Gathering leves just lack incentive.