>The Archmage of the Tower tells you "A young dragon, known to
>study the mana's weave of protection has been seeking to
>establish a lair east of Galadon."

This, to me, is the least interesting solution. How does random quest mob even know where your wands are to be able to provide you a hint.

>The problem "we" would run into is the general difference
>between player's ability to solve certain hints. This example
>I gave is pretty easy, since you just have to go find a
>dragon, which are very unique and memorable mobs.

Balancing the vagueness of the hint, with some level of challenge wouldn't be easy. Your aura wand is on or near a mage!

>Perhaps it could work in conjunction with improved consider,
>and such, so that you could know that a transmuter, for
>example, either directly holds, or holds the key to your
>barrier wand. Or a demon. Or a sahuagin basket-weaver.

I don't even see how these two correlate.

>Perhaps the right level of concrete details plus vagueness
>could help give players a solid, honest lead that gives them
>hope and direction, but keep the locations from being too
>spoonfed and widely-known.

This guarantees they eventually become spoonfed. Walk up to mob XYZ, they say "A young dragon, known to study the mana's weave of protection has been seeking to establish a lair east of Galadon.", you check your list and know to go see the Brass Dragon in the hills.

>Obviously, I don't know how many
>wand spots there are now, so I can't say how many of these
>hints would have to be generated and looked at, or how
>difficult it would be to judge what is a "good" hint, and
>what's a "bad" one.

There are probably over 100 locations now for A/B/S.