I suggest that all weapons be able to have a greater impact on their performance based on the ingredients that go into them.
For instance, using good hardwood and a linen rope with training weapons may give improved skillgain, but you might just use a regular rope instead for an inferior, flimsy weapon not suited to tournaments and almost not suited to training.
Swords may go for a good leather grip, but may also go for wood, metal (rare metals like gold or silver could shine brightly, adding to prestige!) or other materials.
Uncapping the quality on iron and steel and instead having more tangible benefits from steel and vsteel would also be nice. First off, your iron sword is going to take more durability damage when being parried by or parrying a steel or vsteel blade (or even hitting steel or vsteel armor). This further sets apart the lowly man at arms from the esteemed knight.
Higher quality iron, steel and vsteel could also be reflected through better balance, using less stamina per swing. Nothing major, but a nice little buff to those who try to produce high end weapons.
Minor bonuses to armor penetration for steel and vsteel would also better set them apart from common iron.
The same thing could be done with armor. The effects being mostly analogous.