I am a rational and understanding person, and, although I am far from being some kind of a "guru", I dare say I know a thing or two about this game most of us actively playing (and some others wait for a "new world" to start, much like vultures over a dying lion's corpse).
I am describing myself this way to encourage people responsible for that abomination of a quality system we have in place to come clean and confess, unburdening themselves from the horrible guilt for spawning this macabric E/S/V cadavre that, I have no doubt of that, keeps them awake at nights. I sincerely believe that their intentions were pure, they hoped for the best releasing their child into Hearthlands, but, alas, the child was stillborn, came back as a ghoul and is slowly devouring the souls of every hearthing.
In all seriousness though: what was the initial purpose of implementing this seemingly unnecessarily complicated system, and why is it still in place if it barely affects anything in current world? I mean, armor and weapons, yes. Foods. And... that's pretty much every aspect of the game affected by tri-quality difference, that I know of. Not that I really care because, let's be honest, the E/S/V fluctuations are rarely extreme, and the correlations between them and affected item attributes are less than crucial (that is to rephrase "basically don't mean shit").
The sole actual somewhat constructive effect tri-quality has is long-term planning for crafting the highest-tier armor and weapons. If you want a high-damage sword, go for Substance since the very beginning of your mining, smelting and treeplanting. Other than that, a few points here or there will not affect your gameplay in any measurable way whatsoever.
After some knowledgeable person reveals to all interested readers, what was the intended purpose of E/S/V, besides making hearthlings' lives much, much more tedious and dragging, I would also like an answer to this question (it bothered me for some time now and I think I should just ask this and be done with it).
Can you guys (jorb and loftar) please, please make the tri-quality system go away anytime soon, or at least make it it into some sort of a rudimentary mechanic solely for weapon/armorcrafting?