Jewelry always lost charges. I think uncursing artifacts is a bad idea because it introduces more artifacts into the market which would devalue the artifacts we already have and stop people bothering with doom so much. Earrings with stats are a bad idea (even the idea of having shoes with stats) because it would mean there is no reason to wear any other earrings for the people whom the earrings are targeted at. Even a strength bonus of 1 would mean every PVPer would wear them making anyone who doesn't have them at a disadvantage.
I think any reward should be good and worth getting, but as an alternative (rather than better/worse) to what we already have. That's assuming that these rewards would be combat orientated. I think that the best form of reward is one that comemorates the items that are handed in, or the occasion involved (Ophidian invasion, etc).
One of the problems is that UO today is a very item-based game. Everything revolves around items and an item's usefulness is determined by it's stats and how much it improves your gameplay. So any items that we get should really only have decorative use or have to be useful enough in order to want. But what uses are there? Weapons - fast and does a lot of damage. Armour - regen, lrc and provides a lot of resists. Other mods really depend on the weapon and are either really useful or really not. But when you start handing out really useful items, you make current items less worth using and the new items worth ridiculous amounts, with everybody wanting to use them.
So a purely decorative or innovative (something that doesnt exist currently to do a certain thing - not a summoner or a fireworks wand or something gimmicky that will get boring after about 30 seconds) solution is more preferable, I think. Other factors in desireability are the graphic used (nothing since t2a that has been released has been, in my opinion, more good looking than the original set of artwork - what happened to the fancy dress and plate helmet graphics too!) and the hue used. A really ugly washed out hue from a dye tub on an item doesn't look as good as a larger range of shades of say skin hues or hair hues or leather dye tub hues. And a nice looking item that preferably hasn't been obtainable might make it desireable, too. For example something like the Serpent Crest graphic in the castle.
Anything using an existing graphic and a new hue and a new name, I will probably want to get anyway. Moreso if it requires more points than other items. If it is a wearable with a really really nice hue (there are several specific hues that are *not* the blaze or glacial hues) that doesn't exist on anything else you can currently wear then that would make it even more desireable, for me.
There are a lot of players who would probably only bother with this hand-in system if it provided them with something equal to - or better than - a pair of vine cords, a royal guard sash with stats or something similarly ridiculous. But once you go down the road of giving players overpowered items you then have to deal with the disadvantage it could bring to the rest of the players and then the overpriced distribution by the players who manage to get a lot of them. Which would probably happen. And there are players who are rich enough not to really care how much it is, so long as they can get it and they will never even have to know about any of the events or much time it took to get the items required to be handed in.
Unless you want to use the NO TRADE NO DROP items which is hugely restrictive and not fun. I dont know about other shards, but on Europa we were given sashes at some event or other in which the winners received these hideously tagged items which could never be disposed of.
