>And that is the idea behind changing wield to always work. 99% of
>the time, 99% of the characters (all of which have wield) will have
>an expected outcome of success.

Actually, failed wield usually means you still have your previous weapon as primary.
In some case, the current system may wield primary if there was none while my system will fail, in other cases, the current system may remove previous primary weapon without wielding a new one while my system will just produce "failure" leaving you with the previous primary weapon.

>I also don't think you need to have specific remove functions
>just for your primary/dual/held items.

You can live without them. They just make things easier.
Problem with the current "remove" command is that it requires a parameter.
In your mind you usually try to emptify one of slots from any item. Right now you have to remember what item resides there or look before trying to remove. And in pracice people actually often look at themselves before removing weapons.
The second problem is that the parameter must specify "unique" key-word, commonly used key-words like "white", "black", "sword", "adamantite", "steel" often remove something else instead of desired weapon. And if you are spec'd in a particular weapons and wield two exactly the same weapons, remove command becomes "random".
After all, old remove and my specific remove commands may co-exist.

Anyway, take care. You can't rewrite the wield system anyway because of many additinal things attached to that so you have to deal with the monster that is already written
It is just a theory. After all there should be someone who produces theories from an "ideal" world even though he doesn't expect them to be implemented right away.
That gives a scope and allows to look at familiar things from a diffrent angle.