Diablo® III

You see an item, dont know its rarity or stats but know that it will have a BASE stat. something that cannot go below. Obviously higher level BS increases the base stat for all items even level 1 crafted items. So by increasing the BS to max level you can increase crafted low level items almost to perfect everytime, but the increase in base stat upgrades would be far less for higher level items, though it would still be an increase. This would be some incentive to actually level the BS to higher and higher levels. It would cost gold up until a certain level then would only be upgradeable by crafting certain items or amounts of items.

That way if you have X plan (without rarity) it has a chance to drop X legendary item. Much like D2 gambling. The only difference is that leveling the BS increases the lowest possible stats that items can have.

Thus tackling both the "no point in upgrading the BS", "flood of legendary crafted items in the AH", and making crafting items for leveling low level characters actaully fun. People might actually level there own characters again instead of getting a 2-3 hour rush to 60 and beyond.