[user5994461]

I've seen a game that fixed the 3000 skulls problem.

All items could be destroyed to create runes, that can be applied to another item to improve it. Let's say that a skull giving +10 force would give a few runes to add +1 and +3, the later being more valuable.

Everything was recyclable and there was a complete economy about recycling to provide for the one hundred different characteristics.

[Raph_Koster]

This still causes runaway inflation of item power, which results in mudflation.