I actualy like the stamina as I like to play my Characters as Characters, not industrialised factories and wielding a hammer for a day is exhausing

Steel is indeed hard to come by, but hey, it was in medieval times. But I agree, that Perk choices should be more related. So you could choose between Armorer (yes please!), Weaponsmith or creating the hard to come by but needed raw materials. But whatever I would choose, I would want it to take time. Being the Master of whatever in Mount & Blade after half a year of ingame time - I personaly wouldn't want that. I want to build a dynasty! I want my grandchildren (still have no children... just not found the right one) to unite Calradia and I want storys to be told about the first of his name and how unbeliveable it is, that he started from nothing what later became the New Empire... Something like that

Or just a difficulty slider
Maybe, as a last thought, they could add something like the ability to found a dynasty of smiths where recepies are passed on through the generations...