[Chazar]

I feel very much the same about low-level items on commoners. It might be fun, but it isnt even remotely cost effective and takes too much time. It is a shame that all this is wasted...

Here is my solution: Alter the mapfile and add some simple commanders to all provinces, each having the random-equip flag set at low-level. Those certainly do not make it more difficult to conquer the independents, but cause that there are many trinkets around waiting to be won in battle. So one can have some fun discovering some unusual items...
However, it is a shame that there is not a single setting allowing to give random trinkets to all independent commanders...


Another option is probably the difficult research option, where the usability window for low-level items is prolonged...