I'm trying hard to keep a lid on my rant. But let me whistle my tea kettle first and make an obnoxiously sharp sound. I've just spent about 100 clicks (at least, probably verging more on 200+) moving tools, etc, into repairs. Perhaps this gives somebody somewhere some insight to why I would want to eliminate half of my account in the first place. Just maybe, you sympathize, or at the very least, can feel empathy for my situation. This is not at all the first time I've had to do it, but as far as I'm concerned, will be the last time. Why is it going to be my last time? Because I'm going to spend half as much time to explain a way to make things more reasonable.
1) Cut the current time values down by half. If Y is the current value, put a denominator of 2 underneath it, and call this value X.
2) Proceed to use Y as the value rot for things outside on the floor/or in one's inventory. Use X for those on the floor indoors.
3) I know there's been talk about making repair projects degrade overtime.

Let's leave that alone. If a sword can be stored for hundreds of years, so can mine, if I "store" (i.e. leave in "repair") right.* We'll call that Z (time and rot freeZe)
*The only exception would be if "storage containers" were to gain a use. This would be it, rather than repair projects, these would be that "time n' rot freeze" (Z) zones. That's if we can put items into them without disappearing. Then, please, by all means, proceed to make Y the value for inventory/outside, X on the floor and repair projects, and Z for storage containers.