The repair system for items right now, IMHO seems a bit lopsided and broken. The fact that you either need to make a brand new item to repair a broken one, or have a spare to use for repair, and then you will still eventually need to make another new item unless whatever it is grows on trees, feels a little off. I know you can science the broken items but even then you don't hardly end up with much even with higher skills.
One possible fix would be to revert to the old repair style, I'm not sure how much work that would take and if the item system was completely revamped for the new repairs, that wouldn't be fair to ask of the Dev's. Also if it caused the loss of all current items in game to achieve said suggestion, that would not be fair to the players. Even though the old system was easier it still had requirements, I know that even with over a 200% repair things didn't always go right, so it was viable.
Another option would be to allow for items to be repaired by lesser materials, like metal parts, alloys, or junk for weapons, and hides, fibers, metals/alloys for armors. This way you can repair items without having to make a whole new one, but still need more work than just slappin the old S key and hitting repair.
Another possibility you could mix the two; I like the way that items you get from encounters show some wear, more so then just being near broken in previous seasons, but actually being weaker versions based on use. You could keep the lower Max durability but allow for old school (S+repair) to work on them, that way they would not be as good as made items, but they also wouldn't require having another just to fix it. In previous seasons items kept a tab on how many times they were broken, with this suggested fix, you could make it so every time an item is broken it loses more Max durability, maybe even making consecutive breaks drop it by larger amounts as the item 'falls apart'.
If the old way can't come back, I'm sure there are ways to make the new one better.
I would love to hear if anyone has other ideas or possible fixes they've been thinking of for the system.