First off, as I made clear from my first point, I am just expressing my personal opinion; I don't in any way speak for the mod team on basically anything except for what I have been given permission to do in my fort battle balancing role. While my input when I speak to the mod team representing players might carry more weight, that is only if/when I am representing that what I am saying is intended to reflect the player-base not my own opinion.
- Trading sets for their suggested value: totally wrong. You're not fooling anyone when you claim Nick set is worth the same as Vaquero just because they came from the same event. Nick is a garbage set for .... basically for nobody. I stopped playing one world after I got 3 of those sets during Christmas 2020. And nothing can make me come back to it. Unless you trade me cowgirl or vaquero for my spare Nick sets LOL.
- Trading products for products according to drop rate: OMFG, what is this proposition, it's like you're not even trying. Are players supposed to compute which amounts are fair according to the drop rate? Which drop rate? an adventurer's with full drop gear and buffed with candy cane or a soldier's, unbuffed with no drop gear? What if I spam 15s and another farms full hours? What if one farms solely cash while another farms products, while they both wish to buy sets from the tombola?
Just to be clear, I am in no way suggesting any two sets from an event or year have equal value -- that's a reason I chose the specific example of Captain for Joseph Warren -- I am just attempting to suggest an objective standard that could be readily enforced, which expressly avoids the question of how to determine "Fair Market Value" and instead provides a "Safe Harbor"
Similarly with products, I am just attempting to suggest an objective standard that could be readily enforced, ignoring actual "Fair Market Value" and providing for a "Safe Harbor" by using the publicly available base drop rates.