I read somewhere that heirlooms will eventually be tradeable. I got to thinking, if there is an economy around heirlooms, then what makes one heirloom more valuable than another, assuming they are all the same generation? Would people rather just "exchange" heirlooms (which is how the current system I imagine will work) or actually trade them? In order to create value of heirlooms, you'd need lower-tier items that are also heirloomed, but no one wants to level to level 31 three times to masterwork a practice sword. So, how about lower-tier items have a lower level requirement for heirlooming, or even a gold fee or just something to encourage lower-tier items to be heirloomed. The problem is that this conflicts with chadz statement that he wants heirlooms to be more rare. But, I still see everyone having the same exact high-tier item heirloomed.
What does everyone think about this? No flames please, I'm aware that this is an iffy, if not horrible, idea already.