I'm going to agree with waht a couple of people have said.
Bring in Abj's.

For a long time in xi things like heca, shura, dalmaticas & zenith were incredibly sought after pieces. and they required buying a cursed dalmatica and then going out to kill odin or I forget which hnm to get the abjuration to purify it. required high level crafters and a decent group of people to do the fights. in many ways the perfect system.

Other examples included things like the scorpion harnesses and haubies etc. considered incribly strong pieces and required drops from various hnm/ksnm kinda stuff. all crafted items and for along time amoung the best available. still crafted but often required a fight somewhere to obtain the materials