Why bump. You posted a rethorical question. This is the players helping players section. All we can say is that it is as it is. Weapons/armor at vendors is reasonable good (make sure to also upgrade them with enchantments). You can also trade a lot with other players. But yip, the gear at the traders are a bit diorganised. Nothing we can do bout it.

It's not that people have given up or don't want change, but the Players Helping Players section is not really designed to be the area of the forums where people discuss what they don't like about the game or what they would like to see changed -- that is best kept to places like General Discussion, PvP Combat & Skills, Crafting, etc.

Players Helping Players is intended to be the place where mainly new or returning players can get their game related questions answered quickly. You might get a bit of discussion if people disagree on how to answer the OP's question, but for the most part if a post doesn't a have a real question, people aren't going to keep responding because it pushes threads that have unanswered questions off the first page. Plus, this is probably one of the least frequented forums by the developers, so if you want them to see your discussion, posting elsewhere is more beneficial.

P.S. I think a lot of players are reluctant to suggest mods as an answer to questions, because currently most of the players who are asking the questions play on console, which doesn't have access to mods. I think most people just kind of assume that the new posters asking questions are console players (unless stated otherwise) and try to give advice that is either generic to all platforms or specific to consoles. If you play on PC, the best place I know of for mods is esoui.com. There is also a whole section of the forums dedicated to mods where you might be able to find the information you are looking for http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/add-ons-and-ui-mods.

Good luck!