Just a thought and something different how about smelting npc much like the disassembling item this npc takes your unwanted items to create something new or materials for a weapon or gear or consumable. The more you bring to the npc his level go higher making it more worthwhile to obtain rarer materials. It could be solo or the entire server come together and raise level would be great for the community to work on that
+ for this. If that GM:s don't like that idea or they want different. Maybe some like "refinement" rate, that you have some % change to get something. It's better than discarding the items all the time All the items would have same value for the vendor maybe.. of course some items are easier to obtain. So there comes the hard part.
This should be locked into and if the GM don't know what you're talking about then we can give more insight.