Thinking about it... well it's pretty hard to come up with a satisfactory reward scheme. So comments welcome:
For starters, we assume that the ideal, utopic world where players would participate for the sake of participating is not applicable globally (some players would gladly). In other words, it is not absurd to state that globally, players expect rewards.
So what kind of rewards seem appropriate? equipment? materials? fame? xstals? there seems to be drawbacks with any approach. Better than crafted items will, undeniably cause farming, annoy crafters and it seems clearly something not we all want. Lower than crafted yet still excellent... well, it could be done, but it has to be good enough to be worth doing it... and we have grown to like the supreme
Advantages: there are nevertheless players who would like not to have to depend on crafters (eeuk!) and I can understand them. As suggested, they could be made to have low durability, but what prevents os from just hoarding more, lower durability, higher farming rate.
Materials: what grade? what quality? how can we know it will not cause farming as well? farming already happens with suprenodes and boss respawns, some players complain about their inability to have access to these precious mats, so how could this be done ?
xstals, this seems good and nice, but ... I may be wrong, but I have the feeling that at the current rate they are produced, OP owners are not specially in HUUUGE lack of them (I'm not stating they are overflowing the GH, although in som cases are.. but.. for what I know, a fair share of players have near to none problems to have xstals and some have a steady supply to enable doubling xp in every action they do.
Other rewards? yes.... they can be consumables or non consumables. For consumable rewards, this seems a good trade-off to me. Non consumables as armor patterns have the inconvenient that .. well, once they are learnt, the feeling of lack of challenges comes back.
Fame? interesting as well, as long as fame becomes meaningful, allowing access to other aspects of the game (new titles). Fame is imho a much underutilized aspect of the game.. Tribes could bow to you, give you titles, manifest they are glad to see you, etc.
So what are your preferences, what qualifies for a fair reward?
.............Blue is Beautiful............. 
