I agree with having oil barrels add earth damage, just as poison barrels do. It's low effort to implement, but gives certain builds a viable alternative to their venom coating / poison infused weapons when facing undead. I could go either way on a coating spell for earth damage - it'd be nice but venom coating is a hybrid between geo and scoundrel, so I don't know how it should be implemented into the game world.
Savage Sortilege to Champion Incarnates would be nice.
Strongly agree on the Merchants idea. Right now merchants are a pain if you've previously sold them any amount of previous items.