Level: 50 [Wizard] Age: 318d, 21h, 5min and 6s

My two cents:
As a player, I've had the most fun actually exploring an area for the first
time with other players that are exploring it for the first time. And it
really capped off the night when we'd finish the area, kill the king mob, get
the gold, and the girl, or whatever.
That being said, I'd often return to that place at first to get eq for myself
or the other people in the party that didn't dice or bid so high the first
time around. After that we'd go back to get eq to sell, in some cases. One of
the reasons I didn't like going back, was to get an eq that I'd already had,
but that broke.
So. What about this as a possible solution? Allow an eq to be immortalized. An
immortalized eq would only be usable from then on by the person that
immortalized it. Additionally, an item could only be immortalized if the
player attempting to immortalize it was in the party that originally got the
eq. The advantage? That eq would either take much less permanent damage or
would not take permanent damage.
Keep in mind that I'm only throwing this out as an idea. This does not reflect
the position of the current administration towards eq damage.