I disagree, I am currently a vassal that has a deficit of £750 a day, selling weapons was a good way of keeping me in the black. This isn't the case anymore and its actually ruining my game as I cannot fund my garrison or my standing army. I have x3 enterprises that do not make much money and my caravan is raided frequently. I am flooding the market with rubbish level 1 javelins because they are easy to make and I make nearly as much from them as a level 5 crafted weapon.
This isn't about making easy money to cheat the game, its about a legitimate way of bank rolling my campaign. Like I originally mentioned, I have invested a lot of time and effort into Smithing which now seems completely redundant and has taken some of the enjoyment of the game away from me.
I really like the concept of creating weapons and unlocking the higher tiers, but what is point if you can't benefit from that effort? the traders sell higher tier weaponing for extortionate amounts, so its seems imbalanced to me.