Once again I'd like to propose a system wherein people can either:

Turn all drops/DG loot into tokens which can be redeemed in varying quantities for a chance at a random item from that band (similar to the xmas gear missions mostly giving junk, but sometimes giving nice stuff... it's a second attempt).

Or turning them into credits, commodities or components required for the production of endgame gear.

If this were implemented properly we'd see an increase in the demand for... everything, in the long term.
This also ties in with one of my other ideas (Dyson Spheres) which died... I'll see if I can dig that up based on the reception of this idea.

Item sinks are definitely needed imo. Especially with a system like this with diminishing returns essentially, you are forking over 5 Venu pulse guns for a chance at getting a Venu pulse gun, and other gear in that gear bracket.

This would stimulate the market in so many ways.

Agreed to something along these lines. Also remove most of the aug-related blueprints from the drop tables and make them available for purchase or through easy mission hand-ins!

But what of UZ gear, could you trade in like, 10 Armada Drones and possibly get 7 AIDs and 3 Charges back? How exactly do you propose to do area-special gear.

There are already lots of good sinks for unwanted UZ gear. You can turn in Primal blueprints for dips and research tokens, and build Armada base gear / drones using regular UZ gear. And of course, you can build AInfernos and ACharges with Armada Drones. Absolutely no reason to put in more item sinks there.

DG gear then. UZ gear is specific enough that sinks aren't really necessary

The new egg-basket feature would allow for this, no?

What is this exactly? I haven't played much in the past couple years.