I think it's great. When I first started playing, you could buy seasoned beans at a vendor. Then that stopped. Now the tree poison and antidote have stopped being vendor-only items, as well as hooch.
I wonder if TS is going to gradually phase out other vendor items. It would be neat to have bee hives around the world - like only in community gardens for instance - and you'd have to go there to collect honey.
Or the giants could start creating olive trees (like the paper trees) that you have to find to get olive oil. And you could harvest mushrooms in caves.
Salmon! Wouldn't you enjoy having to go fishing to get salmon? I would.