We can't make fun of the guy who heirloomed his sumpter/practice sword/dagger/quaterstaff/etc... anymore.
Our heirloomed item is one of the only thing the costy retirements gave us, and now we can't even use it anymore.
(Also heard that heirlooming an item increases it's base value, thus increasing it's repair cost.
)
I thought it was following the 7 stats of an item :
Broken - Semi-broken - Used - NORMAL -1st heirloom -2nd heirloom -3rd heirloom
And that every time you get unlucky, it goes down by one category, and to get it back to the BEST state depends of the cost of the item. In this thought, why not indeed increase the base value, since it gives us 1/2/3 more broking chances, but as it is now, it's automatically pay/paymore/payevenmore.