It is perfectly reasonable that any item whose alchemy origin is below 4 stars becomes auto-bound when crafted to that point or beyond. However it's a little weird for items that already start that high. So:

If an alchemy path STARTS at 4 stars (such as the Stone Tortoise), allow the 4 star item to remain unbound unless it is upgraded to its 5 star form, in which case the 5 star form will auto-bind when crafted (such as upgrading Stone Tortoise to Omega Shell).

If an alchemy path STARTS at 5 stars (such as the Heater Shield), allow the 5 star item to remain unbound.

One of the things that I will miss from the old system was that we could craft 4* and 5* gear for others.

Is the reason for the change that OOO doesn't want us to "benifit" from using the item and then later sell the item to another player? If that's the problem, let us apply heat to any item in our inventory, and we will be able to craft for others, while not "using" the item for ourselves.

Allow us to craft/upgrade items through the trade windows (as long as we are near a crafting station).

The item stays bound to whomever owns the item. Materials can be taken from the trade window, so no need to "trust" the crafter.

Just a suggestion that you should implement the same shortkeys that all mac applications and games have in common.
Command + c is copy
Command + v is paste
Command + M is fullscreen/not fullscreen toggle

It's kind of annoying to open up text and go cmd+c then open up chat in game and go cntrl+v.

Descriptions like "medium", "long" and "very long" are too vague. I could understand the logic behind incorporating ambiguity into weapon bars, but I don't see the logic behind it being incorporating into the auction house. Numbers would let people know exactly how much time they have to farm and raise enough funds to bid for an item. Only if you put any old mat into the auction house ( granted to take it right back out ) can you have an idea of how long bids last.

You will see four options.
1. Four hours.
2. Twelve hours
3. One day
4. Four days

I understand that OOO needs to make money but the players also want to have fun with the game. There are a couple simple things that could be done which would accomplish both.

Lichen Soccer. In all its glory and awesome.

Ever shield pushed a lichen inbetween two cubes?

If you have this is the game for you, having 2 teams of 4 players pushing a single lichen around a field to get it between 2 blocks.
Also winning this minigame could give you points to earn cool prizes like cool costumes.

Basically to solve your problem of having the rich kats with 50k ce or more never having to spend another cent on the game. Just put in any hard CE dump.

Not just for the knights, but for the gremlins too. It'd be hilarious.

Edit: Also, option to attach messages to bombs? You can change the message while in rooms you can change weapons in. Yes, this is completely for making fart jokes regarding haze bombs and any poison type bombs

The way the auction was implemented is terrible. It's a useless copy/paste of the World of Warcraft auction (when it was back in vanilla with no UI addons) with even less functionality. The posting fee and 10% cut are outrageous and simply discourages people from using the auction and forces them back into the chaotic trade chat.