At the moment, there's little point in using your resources, especially your tannins and such to craft and improve your armour and weapons. You should be able to use less of the same tier or a higher tier material to increase the level and strength of the armour/weapon. So, instead of having to make a whole new iron sword for level 10, because your level 8 sword is underpowered, you could just take it to an anvil, and add an extra iron ingot or 2 to improve it to level 10. This would mean if you had used your honing stones and such to improve it to fine, or superior level, you wouldn't be wasting them by out-levelling the equipment. At the moment, the way I see it, there's little point in using your improving items on lower level gear, because it becomes useless after a couple of hours of gameplay, or less. Comment what you think of this below, and feel free to leave criticism or compliments.