Apologies, I meant to put it in the post (and will edit it in), but Immortal Stewardship is the practice of repairing and modifying Immortal Constructs. I am still pondering if I am going to make this a race-exclusive profession to start, but it runs into the same problem that has been brought up with Goldsmithing: some parts of Immortal Stewardship is just creating something extremely similar to plate armor, but with additional physical bits; "Why can't an armorsmith just do that?". Essentially, Immortal Stewards are armorsmiths for Immortal Constructs; I would not feel like I was missing out because I couldn't choose it, unless I really liked the Immortal Constructs, but at that point, I wont be using mundane armor anyway, so I wont miss armorsmithing. Anyway...
I'm reading all of the feedback carefully, and I do not have a direct answer for how smithing will turn out come full release. We're aware of the concerns, and will come to a compromise best fitting for the server.
But you must all know that even the best smiths are soon going to have an influx of new materials that they have yet had practice with, their time will be consumed by these new materials, as they are much more costly on resources than your more mundane materials. The plugin was not based around any sort of human capability with disregard for other races, our design philosophy is to allow people to play their crafting niche, without making it incredibly easy to cover all of the bases of crafting with just one or two characters. Many of these new materials have base effects that eclipse some of your favorite artifacts. They are formidable tasks to forge. That being said, there will as well be new softer metals, similar to gold and silver, that will be added, and only the most professed in metallurgy will be able to learn with relative ease. The method of forging can become something of strange and pure fantasy, instead of a mundane task.
While a blacksmith may have an easier time working gold than someone who weaves fabrics, working soft metals into desirable, quality shapes is something that a 'smith' can specialize in their whole life, without swinging a hammer against a piece of hot iron. It is not "easy mode", but I can see where practice in smithing in general can aid you in working the materials. You know the basics, after all, and probably have a few molds to pour things into. Ultimately, the limit to professions is intentional, and by design, some characters are not going to be everything they used to be.
But I will reiterate again that I see merit in the conversation about Goldsmithing in particular; I will not just forget about your points, and I have a few solutions in mind, but I want to play them out in my head before I advertise them as solutions or compromises. This is supposed to be a thing of excitement, and I do not want to upset anyone, so I will not make any promises besides that I promise to think long and hard about the best solution.