Imagine what would happend in the real world if everything lasted forever. Economy break down.

Provisioning and alchemy is fine, since they are consumables.

Blacksmithing, clothing, woodworking and enchanting however run into the issue of people reaching the highest level gear and crafting economy for those crafts break down.

I hate the itemization threadmill where developers keep releasing new gear with better stats, to keep you wanting the new stuff as it creates balance issues.

Instead I'd like to see armor and weapons have durability (this would cover enchants for those items as well).

Each item has a durability. Each time you repair an item the amount repaired is subtracted from the durability. This does not decrease the effectiveness of the item in any way. When it can no longer be repaired you need to craft or buy new gear - even if you already had the best gear available.

Perhaps that creates some issues with items dropped, that can't be crafted - but that can be handled easily.