One way to spice up new and existing zones. World Tomes:

[Avraym]

Which is more than enough. SE likes to pride itself on story, adding what the OP suggested is a good idea, you have those updates go into a LORE journal and just to give the people who cant fathom spending time reading something, you can give small amounts of XP (from exploration) based on how hard the item was to reach.

Like i said, xp reward :P