First off, Lady Michelle, I'd like to say that I find this an interesting proposition, with good potential to attract experienced players. It could even provide incentive to new, and old players to come try Siege Perilous after "getting their feet wet" on another shard.
How would this work, would the option to copy a character to Siege Perilous only activate once the player has a character on another shard that has achieved a certain amount of time played on a character, or would it be based off the skill-level of the character? Would you have to already have a character created on Siege (maybe for a certain period of time?) in order to get the second slot? If someone copied a character to Siege without checking if they had already created a character here would they only get the usual one slot?
With your experience on Siege choosing a crafter, I would have to agree. From my experience on Chesapeake, I remember animal taming, and resisting spells taking considerably longer time to reach Grandmaster level compared to spell-casting or combat skills. However, my being unaware of the rate over time skill-gain system featured on this shard, it makes me wonder to how skills are impacted. It would seem the system potentially balances skill gains between all of the skills, for instance a weapon-based or melee skill would take longer than on an average shard, whereas animal taming could be a good deal faster. Either which way, I still believe a crafter would be my first choice as well; or maybe an archer/resource gatherer.
When it comes to what items are allowed, when you say "no blessed deeds," do you mean commodity deeds, bulk order deeds, bank checks, and things of that nature? Some folks may be more comfortable arriving to a new shard with money in their pocket or crafting materials. When it comes to blessed items and the like, maybe when one transfers a character over, Siege would automatically clear blessing from all items that would either, A. Not normally be blessed without a deed, B. Not fall under the "basic" clothing category, C. Just not be blessed on Siege. All "basic" clothing being anything that is equipped in a clothing slot with no stats, excluding vet-reward 3% resist items of course, ruling out blessed Crimson Cinctures, Tangles, or whatever else.
However, understanding that Siege is an advanced play-set community, maybe the ability to copy over a skilled character would be enough in its own.