Why hasn't it been made possible to smelt lumps of <metal>? Reclaiming the metal isn't far fetched and could go a long ways to helping newbs with that trade instead of leaving a hole munch of dagger/shields lying about.
As far as specialty metals like elven and adamantium, even if a weapon/armor is cooked down to lump form it would still take an elf/drow to smelt it back to a working peice of <metal>. Or if any other race tried it could be turned into lead.
Smelting
Good enough a point. However, take a look from this point of view. If everyone buys 20 pieces of metal, and starts making something with it. Let's say they try to make 20 daggers and 1 fail. They burn down the remaining 19 into smelted metal, and continue constructing. And so continues the cycle.
Now if you are a dwarf, would you still want to mine so hard for these people?
Now if you are a dwarf, would you still want to mine so hard for these people?