I feel sort of bad posting in this forum since I'm not working with UIs at all (yet).. but since it's the request thread, well.. maybe the ideas are worth something.
An all-in-one or, even better, a customizable (in the xml file) all-in-one tradeskill machine would be most helpful for doing quick combines in between adventuring.
By clicking the machine you wish to use, not only would the combine window be loaded, but so would your trade-specific hotkeys and your experience toward the next tradeskill level. Noize, your additional idea of a strip showing your actual trade*skills* is a great one too.
Basically, with an all-inclusive UI like this, you would just click on a tradeskill device and already be up and running. No more swapping hotkey bars to sprint or pathfind when you need to head to the bank in between combines either.
I really need to start playing with the UI soon. beastnic, if you get a resizing work-in-progress that you don't mind me fiddling with, I'd be happy to *try* to incorporate some of what I'm getting at but, in all honesty, I have about as much coding knowledge as an HTML 'programmer.' I can reference the built-in dynamics probably, but that's about it..