The main problem with siege, is as Items become more powerful, siege becomes less popular.
(I don't think items can get anymore powerful than they are, really) magic property caps are the only thing maintaining any balance.
Other restrictions specific to siege, that may deter people from even trying it:
1) limited to 1 character slot per account.
2) No recall or equivalent spells - Gate Travel Only.
3) the Rot Skill-gain system. (more reliable gains, but very slow progress)
4) limited to 1 blessed item. (no insurance)
The actual problem is that most of the time non-Siege players approach Siege with their production shard mindset and for the most part are unable to think outside of their prodo box. I am not saying they're dumb, in fact this is normal - they approach Siege with their prodo-knowledge of UO because that simply is their background.
The lack of item insurance forces you to re-think your suits and templates. You will have to come up with a solid idea that you can build around your one blessed item. That being said and since you mentioned magic property caps, it is absolutely possible to reach the most important caps with just one blessed item and replaceable suits. Crafted and imbued suits go a long way on Siege. If you or anyone who would like to give Siege a try need advice, feel free to ask (and no, the answer will not always be "train stealth")
Of course you can get some nice extras on your suit by adding high end artifacts but you have to accept that you will loose them sooner or later. Siege Perilous is true risk vs. reward there!
Also Siege does not allow some of the more ridiculous PvP templates and suits that prodo does simply because you wouldn't be able to replace your suits reliably enough.
Dexxers WILL eventually run out of mana on Siege. There are hardly any 4/6 casting templates because they're too costly, there are no 210+ stam/1.25 sec. swing archers on Siege for the same reason, etc. etc.
The field is a lot more even over here.
Let me quickly cover the other points you made from a Siege player perspective:
1. The 1 character limit actually has some benefits - your reputation on Siege matters. We've seen more than enough people who came over to Siege, behaved like a bunch of 15 year old problem children and then complained that noone wanted to trade with them or help them out in any way and treated them accordingly. It's not as easy to hide behind 7 other characters.
Also the 1 character limitation is actually not as limiting as you might think it is. Soulstones are a big deal on Siege. Everybody has them. Put crafting skill on them, put other templates you like to run every now and then on them. If you don't want to spend rl money on them you can often times buy them for gold. The current rate per soulstone token is 2.5-3 million gp, which is really affordable - if you know what you're doing you can farm that up within 2-3 hours. The only limitation here are your stats - you won't be able to switch from having 125 base dexterity to 125 base int.
2. No recall - gate travel only. In this day and age this really isn't a problem. Siege has a huge network of public use teleporters to houses, many houses have crystal portals, corrupted crystal portals, Eodon moonstone crystals, Ilshenar Serpent's jawbones that are set to anyone use. There are several dedicated hubs - public houses with teleport tiles that will take you to other public houses in locations of interest. The biggest hub of all these is located just north of the Britain moongate and has every dungeon linked, every lost land passage, etc. etc. So really there is no need for recall (or even gating) on Siege at all.
From a PvP perspective having no recall and no gating from or into dungeons makes sense too: there is no easy escape.
3. RoT skill gain system. Please don't dismiss this as "too slow" because it only is in theory. Let a Siege vet who knows what they're doing explain to you how to take advantage of the RoT system and I guarantee you you will be able to finish your template almost if not just as fast as on prodo. It is different but it absolutely works. Again, let someone who knows what they're doing give you advice.
4. No insurance - only 1 blessed item. First of all this is a restriction that EVERY Siege player has to deal with, so everyone is really on the same level here. As I said above it makes things different on Siege but it doesn't make things impossible. You will have to entirely re-think your teamplates and suits and come up with affordable solutions that are built around one blessed item.
Some examples: some caster templates like to bless the night-eyes or the hephaestus shield because in combination with the fc1 trade deal (also works for reds btw) they can keep their suits rather cheap. The advantage of these items over that ever so elusive legendary ring or bracelet with overcapped mods is that they can be farmed up relatively easy by new players without access to absolute highend gear.
For dexxers it actually makes sense to make use of the warrior mastery for the extra hci and dci and bless an item that will help them reach their hci and dci caps for example. Often times they like to bless a weapon, sometimes an artifact like the totem of the tribe.
Other people run suits that are closer to prodo suits and use a crimson cincture as their blessed item. These suits will be more costly and require more farming for special ingredients though. Again, in this aspect Siege is true risk vs. reward!
All that being said, please keep in mind I am not trying to make you look like a fool or dismiss your arguments. You are obviously approaching Siege from a prodo player perspective and that is totally legitimate. It will however help to get some input from people who play on Siege as their main shard and who play the whole game (not just naked stealth templates). Don't hesitate to ask for advice. And who knows, you might end up finding Siege more fun than prodo after all.
Now back to the actual topic of this thread. The intention of the OP was to ask for changes that will make the transition of prodo players a little easier, while allowing those who already play on Siege to have a little more variety by having additional ways of blessing an item (CBDs or an extra Siege bless). This is a legitimate request, as is anyone's opinion about it really. Let's keep discussing this and see if we can come up with a suggestion that a majority can get behind.
(PS: Having played on Siege since early 2000 I really wonder who Bilbo and Lady Storm are though. This is not to discredit you or suggest your voices shouldn't be heard, I am merely interested to know who we are talking to here. This by the way is another nice thing about the 1 character per account - there is an actual sense of community on Siege where you "know" people)
