What if Blizz would implement a way, like a new profession, where one player could create their own custom armor/weapon models.
Just like in Warcraft 3 players could create their own maps with the help of a map editor, maybe with todays technology, blizz could make it so that we have an armor/weapon model editor implemented in-game, in a separate interface that would have many of the design features that a real dedicated Design program/app would have.
Think of the possibilities … fans would go crazy at just a hint of something like this, anyone being able to try out their own design Ideas, and not take Blizzards Models but their own, and then to top that, if this would be incorporated in a profession, then people could sell an item on the AH, with a use ability that consumes the item and applies a specific model to an existing item. So if the creator is really good at designing armor models then they can actually make gold in-game.
Then there could be conditions on what items qualities and levels are required for certain designs to be applied on them … the increase in profession skill level could be based on how many hours one spent creating a model, how many sales they got on the AH, or to what quality of gear their design was applied.
One could need to scour the whole azeroth for specific materials to be used in armor models to make them extra special looking. In the sense that one would not have access to all the art creation tools from skill 1, and they would have to increase their skill to be able to unlock specific design tools and methods.
At max skill level one would have access to the whole tool pallete of the design interface and they could create epic looking gear. If you are to really go crazy, with the design of it, then maybe we could have armor effects models that trigger at specific time intervals or when the gear is in a specific zone in the world, or even better, maybe the high high level gear model would do something visually when there is a rogue around, or when you are close to a quest item, or shine a huge bright light when close to death(like a flashbang granade) when close to death … so really, just aesthetic/visual abilities that have no real in-game impact but they have cool looks and cool visual abilities.
Gear model quality has been going down during the years now, so a move like this would really make sense as the load on the art designers would be smaller and they could focus on better art in other areas of the game.
I spilled my idea all over here as if came to my mind, lets see if it gains traction!