Havent' read this entire thread; but i kind of like damage to item reducing effectivenss and not having the ability of repairing things to 100%. This means that things will wear out over time. For example if you could only repair things to 95% then after 10 repairs it would be down to 65%; if effectiveness was 1.4 of % then the effectiveness of 10ac would be down to approx 7.8. Type of armor could impact max repairbility. Of course if items wear out too fast this can be quite annoying et all. However, with this system any item worn too many encounter will eventually break which means you will be forced to change items over the course of the game. - I don't know how well D:OS-2 items will progress but i know in d:os-1 it was not uncommon for me to find the 'best' item for my character early (amazing number of mid-level items were used until level 18 or 19). Anyway just a thought.
