Shopkeepers will shrug and not tell you the effects of an item or it's stats, and while that's awesome for immersion and makes perfect sense for a shoppie in the middle of nowhere or the mage Consortium or something, it should almost never happen in a large city where the shopkeeper in question has been doing business for years. Browse should probably show the weapon average as well as tell you ALL the stats a piece of armor boosts, not just one. AC can remain safely ignored though.

And yes Alduk's current pricing formula could halve the result and be more in line with what it should cost. I can see it getting exponentially more expensive depending on the notoriety of the item but if I am forced to buy a sword from Galadon and then take it to Alduk to figure out if it's even worth using in PK at my current level, I shouldn't be spending 50%% of the value of the object.