Yeah and it could also be another element of skill vs cost thing. Where you have skills for repairing that you could build up and it would make you able to repair them yourself at your home or something. Might be getting too complicated, but anything that lets you level up a stat and the cost drops, would be a super rewarding metric in gameplay. I think that should happen for recipes and cooking too, then more you do it, the more likely you are to get good results or something. 

At this point I’m just inventing a bunch of game mechanics when really all that’s needed is a great story, but considering it against what they added, I think something like that would’ve been way more fun. It also would’ve allowed you to buy stuff for your home/property that wasn’t pointless. You could save up to buy a forge and repair your own swords for free, buy a kitchen to cook recipes more potent, etc.

It would’ve improved known elements to be more engaging and rewarding, instead of adding that stupid “stick stuff together!” which was completely unrewarding, basically useless, and honestly just irritating.