Potential improvements to archeology

Let me say from the outset that I really enjoy archeology. Having leveled this secondary skill into the master range, I can say with certainty that it is one of my favorite additions made to the game in Cataclysm. I'm something of a text addict--that is to say I eagerly read every little bit of text that developers put into a game (Metroid Prime took me a very long time to complete for that reason)--so I quite enjoy reading the little text blurbs that come along with each artifact. The fact that I don't have to compete with other players for dig sites is also a much-appreciated aspect of the profession, and one of the reasons I have progressed so far with it; flying to and excavating my own dig sites is much less stressful than competing for quest objectives when the realm is full.

With that said, archeology isn't perfect, and there are some things I believe could be done to improve the profession. Some are minor issues I have with it, issues which I by no means assume are universal qualms which everyone has with the profession:

-I find that knowing which artifact I am crafting ahead of time takes away from the sense of discovery one would think would accompany digging up unknown relics from ages past. Sure, all we get is an icon and a name, but that's enough that the less-than-detailed text blurbs become an underwhelming reward for completing the artifact. That sense of solving a mystery could perhaps be recovered if the icon were revealed bit by bit with each fragment recovered, with the name not being known until the artifact is completed.

-Searching through the list of completed artifacts for one you have just completed just to read the text gets tedious fast. If that text could somehow be copied and become yellow flavor-text for the artifact when it is in your inventory, that would be much more convenient.

-Getting artifacts that sell for five silver at level 85 is pretty underwhelming, especially when one has leveled archeology well beyond the initial stages, where it's understandable for the artifacts to not be worth much (we can't let level 20 players get artifacts which sell for dozens of gold, after all). I think it would stand to reason that as we get better at archeology, we get better at putting together artifacts, and thus the artifacts that we put together could become more valuable. Now, it would be no fun if all artifacts sold for the same amount, so perhaps, instead, the value of the vendor trash artifacts could increase as our archeology skill increases (if Blizzard needed to keep it simple, they could make the value scale just with whether we are journeymen, experts, artisans, etc. in archeology). Under this system, an artifact that currently sells for five silver would sell for less than one that currently sells for twenty, no matter what, but it would still be worth something to a level 85 character with Illustrious Grand Master Archeology.

But there is something more fundamental to the profession that just feels off to me, and that something is the way that we find the fragments for our artifacts. I'm talking about the Survey ability. In its current form, finding fragments with survey feels more like running around following signs than actually searching a dig site. It feels more like we are being lead to the artifact than actually finding it. Now, being that I didn't follow archeology in beta, it could be that this was the best way of finding fragments that Blizzard could come up with, and that they went through many iterations before settling on this one. However, I still believe that one simple change could make finding artifact fragments a more satisfying experience.

I propose that Survey be split into two abilities. One would retain the Survey name and would still spawn the telescope mechanism that survey spawns when you aren't right next to an artifact. However, it would not automatically excavate an artifact once you get close enough to it. To do that, you would need to use the "Excavate" ability, which would collect archeological fragments if you are close enough to them to collect them. Excavate would have a five second cast time, to make the choice to use it more consequential, which would also lead to finding those artifacts being more satisfying. Because it would be serving fewer purposes, the cooldown of Survey could be reduced. This would make pinpointing the exact location of the artifact fragments easier and get rid of that annoying wait during the final stage of looking for an artifact, when you are in the green zone and know you don't have to move far to get closer to the artifact fragments, so you spend much of your time just waiting for Survey to come off of its cooldown.

The reason I think this will make archeology more satisfying, and thus more enjoyable, is that it will bring some strategy into the profession. As I mentioned before, finding artifact fragments with archeology now feels like following arrows until we get to our destination, and we don't know with each survey whether we'll just get another arrow, or whether we'll actually find the artifact fragments. With this set-up, we would have to figure out where the fragment is before digging (in order to avoid wasting time casting Excavate), and that would bring some thought into the excavation process. Now, if this ended up making fragments take longer to find, then the numbers could be changed to balance that out; there could be more fragments per find, or fewer finds per dig-site (which each find giving more fragments).

Now, I by no means think that every player would enjoy this kind of change, which is why I'm posting it here and not of the official forums. With that said, do you think that this kind of change would make archeology more fun and/or satisfying? Or do I just have unreasonably high standards for how challenging the solo content should be?