Making the skills harder or easier to level is a superficial change (as is making them more profitable or less), compared to changing how skills work to remove grinding completely. This can be accomplished ~3 ways. The first and foremost (and frowned upon) is to be allowed to automate tasks so the player no longer has to spend time waiting. {Waiting to get somewhere, waiting to finish a task, waiting for a task to be finished, waiting for the next level, waiting for enough supplies. All this time spent waiting in these MMOs is their most horrible product, or non-product as the case may be.} This can either merely be the ability to program shortcuts, or an entire system, even economy, based around allow the player's character to do something when the player isn't there. The second solution is detail work covering the economy and skill system of the entire game, to balance it so that you are never just "leveling up a skill" but are instead "filling an order" or "helping one more skilled to fill an order". The third is similar to the second, but involves placing numerous fluid limits and discouraging mechanics to iron the system into shape (players generally hate this unless the programmers were subtle and the players don't remember what they're missing).
Since the second and third require more details and more paragraphs than I'm willing to collect or create, I will only finish the first here. Currently the shortcut system is just a way to keep from having to type so much, but could be expanded. By adding support mechanics for timers, triggers, better targeting, arguments, and minor movement, a person would be able to create a single button labeled "smith (metal) (object)" to complete the entire (now decently complicated) task. Thus allowing the person to do other things that aren't quite so pointless or ephemeral.
As I understand it, people find this system despicable, as it removes the "effort" (read "monotonous clicking") and "perseverance" (read "time dumped") required to gain higher skill levels. I don't mean to mock this point of view, and understand it, especially from those who have had to go through it. If such a thing is implemented, all the trouble they went to for their level is made less valuable (like stocks that go bad), because now no one else has to go through the same trouble they did to get that level. I can't think of any solution to the emotional component to that, but I know that it would be much better people didn't have waste their time persevering through the monotony.
The expanded shortcut system would still require that the person watch what their character is doing, and react when someone comes by. Chatting would disrupt the system in some cases, but one of its main values would be the ability to do so while you work; be it in speech, tells, or the gossip channel. It would be good in this case if chatting during a high-concentration task would disrupt the automated system, while mindless tasks would have no problem.
That is just macros, but there is a far greater possible system. One in which your character, on your wish, will continue to do (a) certain thing(s) while you are logged off. The character would be passed off to the NPC server's control and follow a certain schedule you planned out before. Someone might say "but if everyone uses this all the time, skills levels might as well not exist", along with the fact that the server probably couldn't handle such a thing. The solution is thus; hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and disorder. When you use this system, your character will no longer be immune to these things; you must get food and drink, and find accommodations beforehand. The time your character can work, and the time required for life's necessities, will be displayed in its own window where you plan. During planning, you must tell your character exactly how they will organize the time those necessities grant them (with a time-block UI). This planning can either have a pre-set list of individual tasks you fill the time with, or can use something similar to the shortcut programming. It will also need to be decided whether or not such individuals will even be rendered (they could add real hustle and bustle to a city), or if everything they do will be calculated once then left as timers with dice rolls. If you do not use the system, your character will go into log-out stasis as usual.
What am I missing?
