Well, as I was wandering the house at 3am because I was not able to sleep, this popped into my brain...so yea
Anyways, if any of you have played Dark Cloud 2 they have this really cool invention system where you take 3 pictures of something and if they match up right you invent something new then you have to find the supplies to make them.
I\'m thinking a system like this could be useful to each job in the game. Such as blacksmiths, say they take a certain type of metal along with some other components and then try and put them together. This, of course, will often fail as not everything works. But every now and then they will find a combo that works, thus creating a new type of weapon.
This will give exploration a little bit more of a meaning than just to see the world and fight off monsters, since it can work in any profession (baker, alchemy, etc.)
And some items should be really rare and cannot be sold to shops but only traded between other people (making them even less likely to be found)