A pretty big change that could improve a lot of aspects of the game would be to go back to a system similar to native, where you earn temporary gold in game to spend on armors weapons etc. It would take some effort to balance out costs and stuff, but i think it could potentially improve the game a lot too. With this you could also remove gold as a currency all together, but keep looms. It would hurt the rpg aspect though as you cant always wear everything you want, but it would also make more people play in light armor generally, more variety and more reward from playing well as you can armor up if you are performing well.
Very drastic change obviously, but its a much more rewarding system.