I'm torn on item durability and removal of this mechanic - on the one hand, if it was done in a pretty typical way item durability is handled in games, this would have been a super boring and meaningless mechanic, not even achieving it's goal as a gold sink. On the other hand, there's a pretty good chance you could have made it work in an interesting way, where deciding on whether to repair your stuff or not would be a meaningful choice.
But as one thing I completely don't agree with is that crafting skills affect how quickly your items loose durability, from the original idea posted here. I understand WHY it was thought that way (to make the skill useful to more than one character in the party), but it's was a bit silly - after all, most of the time you'll learn how to properly use your weapon (to not make it "lose durability" too much while fighting) at the same as you learn to fight using it. Of course, that's "most of the time", since I can imagine someone being reckless in their fighting style, in relation to weapon durability. Though, that would fit more as a Fallout 1/2 style trait.