What if we had an NPC who, for 1g each armor piece will soulbound and upgrade any piece of exotic armor to ascended?
Since the fee is so moderate and it soulbinds items on upgrade, this could function a lot like weapon customization in Guild Wars 1.
Wouldn’t an upgrader NPC like that resolve all the conflict currently created by Ascended items?
This would make it so exotic items are still of value to players and really solve all the problems in my opinion.