Identify is a nice utility spell. Even though you can usually guess the item
material by just "la <material guess> <armourtype>" and mages in your party
often cast it for stat info just by asking, it wouldn't offer any
extraordinary luxury to other people to have the spell as well. Just a
smallish "uptune", if you can even use the word in this case.

Now, what comes to my suggestion:

Give an npc who would let you study it to 50% if you pass a stat check. Maybe
a formula based on your player level versus your wis. I know, shopkeepers can
id, but the 5k cost for every damned item with lousy data output kind of
sucks. Another option would be that the shopkeeper cost could be lowered to
around 3.5k and the data they give would be a tad more detailed.

And don't get me wrong, I'm asking for 0% mastery id with lousy percentage,
merchants wouldn't lose anything in this matter.

Just some random thoughts, feel free to discuss, flame or press enter to
continue.