Finkum

Off topic: That always struck me as a very unwieldy way to determine loot, as compared to determining loot on mob death. If nothing else it means you have to do a lot of unnecessary calculations, as a significant number of mobs that are spawned will not be killed. Mobs that drop quest items will always have those items in their drop table and then have them hidden if the player is not on the appropriate quest, which will be true for the majority of players for the majority of the time (with some exceptions, obviously). It's all just very counter-intuitive.

I realise that you are referring to that GM quote stating that this was how things worked, but it wouldn't be the first time they've been wrong.

Semi on-topic: A system which alters the drop rate based on what current raiders have in their inventories/banks does seem to easily gameable, and won't solve the problem of "useless" drops that are always sharded. Perhaps a more subtle approach might be to keep a history of each player's drop history for a boss and then use this to make the RNG less objectionable (obviously functions best with a fairly static raid comp). For example, if 80% of the members had seen [Yawnworthy dagger] drop in 4 of 5 total kills of [Overlord of Evilness] then it's chance of dropping could be artifically lowered compared to the other options. This is a bit harder to game, especially as the drop chances are modified progressively over time rather than being a binary exclude.

Definitely on-topic: I also vote for increased integration of crafting professions. Create a new skill analagous to DEing (Deconstructing) that operates via will-not-be-traded to turn an unwanted raid drop into a token and some crafting mats. Crafters can learn recipes to turn this token + other crafting mats into alternate items. Recipes could be associated with reputation, trash drops, or even be learnt as a result of deconstructing the item(s).

For example, say there is a Winterchill-esque boss who drops all different types of bracers. Healing cloth bracers drop that no one wants. However there is a mage who would like the dps cloth variant. Loot the healing bracers to the mage, who can deconstruct them himself (or get a guildie to deconstruct them, if he is not a tailor) into a [Hyjal wristguard essence] and some primal mooncloth/primal life/primal water etc. Then supply the tailor with e.g. spellcloth and primal fire and reconstruct into the dps bracers, supplying the [Hyjal wristguard essence] via will-not-be-traded (thus preserving the BoP nature of the drop).

This basically works similarly to the sunmote + item turnins but does so in a much less intrusive, "we have an infinite supply of epic shinies" way (plus it gives added value to the crafting professions).

Edit:

Was I the only one who interpreted this comment as heavily sarcastic?