Durability in games like this is pretty much used for RP purposes, aka, making your player feel like their gear has value and can be broken, which immerses them in the experience and their own story in their head.
...When I think of things which add to my immersion in the game, I think about setting, story, and characters. I do not think "wow before I clicked that button to repair my item, I wasn't feeling the game at all, but now I am completely immersed in this world."
Just saying.
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Basically repairs should always take something the player cares about if they are going to be in the game. Players don't care about random hammers or tongs, they care about money and their skill points. Removing durability is always an option, but just changing it to have more impact will work just as well. It's not that players hate durability they just hate that it has no impact.
Just giving durability impact isn't enough to make it appreciated, it has to be impact which isn't actively more annoying.
I've seen several suggestions which would indeed add impact... but would also add extra layers of micromanagement and/or actively interfere with the fun part of fighting battles to require the players to stop fighting the battles to deal with inventory management (even if all equipment was at full repair before the fight started).
