I would very much like to see the Gathering and Perceptions stats affect drop rates from mobs. I imagine this would be relatively easy to implement and it would effectively create a new 'job': the Hunter.

I was led to believe this was already the case, so I created a gearset for my NIN, since it has mug and hide. I had a lot of fun figuring out what the best possible gearset would be and actually obtaining it and overmelding it. I went with the serpentskin set (best set with gathering/perception that can be equipped by all classes). When I was done melding, I realized this wasn't the very best set possible, so I had more to do. However, I decided to test it out first and I was sad to find out didn't affect drop rates at all. After killing a 100 gigantoads with my 'hunter' gear and another 100 with my regular ninja gear, I had gathered the same amount of NQ and HQ toad skins (give or take 2). Too bad, all for nothing.

Long story short, I had fun believing Gathering and Perception did affect drop rates from mobs and I think other people would too.