An alternative to reforging and the stat losses it would incur

This post on Restokin about how reforging may not be the über amazing thing we are expecting it to be got me thinking about what could be done if Blizzard doesn't want to allow reforging to completely change the nature of gear. As it stands, it seems that reforging will get rid of one stat on gear and only add an equivalent half of the stat you reforge for. That means that niche classes (both current ones and future ones--I'll explain bellow) will not be able to use reforging as a good means of getting gear in lieu of hoping for usable gear drops. However, people need their gear, and as it is now, people can't get all the gear they need because there are too many classes to itemize for and not enough bosses to drop all that gear. What can be done instead?

Whatever the solution is, it needs to increase the number of classes that will role on a piece of armor and eliminate niche gear (holy paladin gear, resto druid gear, etc.) i.e. gear that only one class/spec will use. Let's discuss niches a bit more. Cataclysm will bring many changes to gear, one being that spirit will be the mana-regen stat for all healers (even shamans and paladins) and DPS will have no use for it. Also, some sort of device will be put in place to motivate people to only wear their top tier of gear, meaning druids won't want to wear cloth, hunters won't want to wear leather, paladins won't want to wear mail, etc. These changes are important, because they mean that even more niches will be created that will make gear less universal than it is now. Think about it: mages, warlocks, and shadow priests won't use spirit, so healing priests will become their own niche. Elemental shamans and restoration shamans will use completely different gear (the latter will use spirit and the former won't), meaning they won't be able to share gear like they (reluctantly) do now. Whatever system Blizzard puts in place needs to address these inevitabilities.

Some inspiration for such a system could be found in the gear exchange system used with Sunwell Plataue armor. With Sunwell Plataue, Blizzard came up with a rather ingenious method for increasing the number of classes that could roll on armor: armor of one type could be exchanged for armor of another type through a vendor. Rogue leather could be exchanged for feral druid leather (remember those days?), healing cloth could be exchanged for DPS cloth, etc. These exchanges worked both ways, in that Sunwell Plataea dropped all types of armor. This meant that rogues had to exchange druid gear for their gear just as we had to exchange their gear for our gear. Could a similar system be implemented for Cataclsym? Let's first look at the various categories of itemization that will exist once Cataclysm hits and the number of class/spec combination that will use them (that latter point is important in deciding which categories should be exchangeable):

DPS cloth (all mages, all warlocks, shadow priests; 7)
healing cloth (discipline/holy priests; 2)
melee leather (all rogues, feral druids; 4)
spell DPS leather (balance druids, 1)
healing leather (restoration druids, 1)
melee mail (all hunters, enhancement shamans; 4)
spell DPS mail (elemental shamans, 1)
healing mail (restoration shamans, 1)
tank plate (protection warriors, protection paladins, frost death knights; 3)
DPS plate (arms/fury warriors, retribution paladins, blood/unholy death knights; 5)
healing plate (holy paladins, 1)

Since there are an odd number of categories, an odd number of them would need to be excluded for the system to work. In keeping with the Sunwell tradition of only exchanging cloth for cloth, mail for mail, etc, a system like this could be used:

DPS cloth <--> healing cloth
spell DPS leather <--> healing leather
spell DPS mail <-- > healing mail
tank plate <--> healing plate

Melee DPS leather, mail, and plate were left out because their demand is high enough that they don't need to be involved in a system like this. With those changes, lets see what the distribution for these new categories is.

DPS cloth/healing cloth (9)
melee leather (4)
spell DPS/healing leather (2)
melee mail (4)
spell DPS/healing mail (2)
DPS plate (5)
tank/healing plate (4)

It's certainly a start: no one class/spec combo gets its own itemization category. Still, cloth seems over-represented, while spell mail and leather are under-represented. Changing tank plate for healing plate could also be problematic. Both tanking and healing are vital and under-represented roles in raiding, and if some tanks and healers shared gear itemization, it could lead to messy situations when a tank-piece drops and the healing paladin wants it. It's also hard to justify, from a lore perspective, changing a piece of tank gear into healing gear magically, since that completely changes the nature of the gear, while the other transformations seem more natural. This system also means that many classes will be exchanging their gear at some point as they raid, making the system an inconvenience for many people.

However, there is an alternative: what if, by adding some leather, scales, or metal to gear, armor could be moved up a tier in armor type? Let's see what categories could be made in such a system. Because people won't want to use a lower class of armor, two-way exchanges would not be necessary in this system, though that means the latter category in each pair would not drop from raids.

healing cloth --> healing leather
spell DPS leather --> spell DPS mail
healing mail --> healing plate
(DPS cloth and tanking plate were left out of this exchange, the former, because it is the most used category, and the latter, because of the issues with the first system and the fact that more classes use it than use the above categories)

So, let's see what the new distribution would be under this system.

DPS cloth (7)
healing cloth/leather (3)
melee leather (4)
spell DPS leather/mail (2)
melee mail (4)
healing mail/plate (2)
DPS plate (5)
tank plate (3)

That seems more balanced to me, but I'd rather have some hard numbers to back up that assumption than simply rely on intuition. Perhaps the standard deviation (a measure of the "spread" of a set of numbers, i.e. the average variation of the numbers from the average of the set) of the systems can give us insight into whether my intuition is right or not.

Standard deviation of the distribution of the first system: 2.36
Standard deviation of the distribution of the second system: 1.67

Looks like my intuition was right; the second system results in a more balanced distribution of gear among the various class/spec combinations. It is also superior to the Sunwell-style gear-exchange system in that fewer class/spec combination are inconvenienced by it; only resto druids, elemental shamans, and holy paladins would need to make any exchanges to change the gear they get in raids, while 17 class/spec combinations would be involved in the previous system. This one is also simpler from a lore perspective, in that the magical essence of the armor piece isn't being changed; only the medium is.

This latter system would also feel more natural than the Sunwell-inspired system; resto druids, elemental shamans, and holy paladins already roll on cloth, leather, and mail armor pieces (respectively) that have the stats they need, so getting them to do so in a raid and then upgrade it later wouldn't be difficult at all. It would also mean that resto druids, elemental shaman, and holy paladins would be able to equip the armor piece as soon as they get it and only be lacking in armor, a stat that shouldn't matter too much, considering their roles. In contrast, getting a holy pally to role on plate gear with promises that he can change it later could be difficult, and the Sunwell-inspired system leaves raiders with gear they can't really use until they upgrade it (in the case of plate tank and healing gear, it leaves them with gear they can't use at all until they upgrade it).

In summary, I propose that the following system be implemented for all armor that drops from Cataclysm's raids (and possibly heroics, if it were feasible): The raids will not drop healing leather armor, spell-DPS mail armor, or healing plate armor. Instead, resto druids will roll on healing cloth, elemental shamans will roll on spell-DPS leather, and holy paladins will roll on healing mail. They will then be able to upgrade those armor pieces to their own armor tier: if the armor is a healing cloth piece, it can be turned into a healing leather piece. If it is a spell-DPS leather piece, it can be turned into a spell-DPS mail piece. If it is a healing mail piece, it can be turned into a healing plate piece. This could be accomplished either through NPCs or perhaps through the various crafting professions. (To keep things fair, tailoring would handle the cloth-to-leather transitions, leatherworking would handle the leather-to-mail transitions, and blacksmithing would handle the mail-to-plate transitions.) The system would involve the player turning in the armor piece and some leather, scales, or metal and receiving the piece exactly as it was before, but with twice as much armor and as a leather, mail, or plate piece, rather than a cloth, leather, or mail pieces, respectively. Those mats could either be a stack of typical mats or one Cataclysm-equivalent to Wrath's Titansteel Bar of Arctic Fur. (Though considering the nature of the process, a stack of typical mats seems more appropriate.) To keep things simple, the stats could remain exactly the same, with only the amount of armor and type of armor changing. To signify this change, the new piece could have its armor type in the tooltip turn green, meaning Blizzard wouldn't need to rename the piece or even come up with a new model. It would be a simple, effective, elegant solution that wouldn't impose the stat loss of Reforging on niche-classes and would allow the armor pieces that drop in raids to be used by more classes.