What about something like smashing items into consumables, rather than them having a vendor cost? It's a concept in another game I play, with a far larger market, and quite a bit more items being farmed. To further explain the concept
Item A
Previous vendor value: 500
Makes: Rank 1 consumable
Item B
Previous vendor value:1000
Rank 2 consumable
Item C
Previous vendor value 2000
rank 3 consumable
Each item on smashing provides a different consumable, the power or type of which is determined by its previous value, and possibly even the zone it comes from, or classes on it, depending on how intricate you want to get with the system. Obviously these would need fairly powerful bonuses to be utilized, but I expect if done properly it would be better than the current system. Even keeping the current system, and adding something akin to this would see less platinum being created through the vendor system.
Thoughts on consumables. Quite a bit you could do here honestly, could be something like +% xp for a limited duration (may help alleviate some concerns voiced here
http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?p=275474#post275474), +% dropped $ (not sure if possible), Various longlasting buffs unobtainable by other methods (a runspeed buff usable in any zone for example), etc.
Another possibility, smash item, obtain a magic essence. Combine 10 minor essences for a regular magic essence, combine 10 regular for a major. Place them into various crafting recipes. Powerful clickies with charges would be a pretty good one. If for example you could create something statless similar in effect to a taeshlin earring, with a few charges, I'd expect it to see a reasonable market. Another possibility, +% to the extra raid loot class diversification chance for each person in the raid with said buff (not sure if that would be possible, or even desirable) .
The big problem here would be ensuring that most of these items are a) desirable, b) consumable. Desirable is the one that I feel would cause the most problems, and I'd imagine that any initial rollout is likely to suffer from an imbalance between desirability and price.
Oh and on a sidenote, alts aren't the draw they once were. I highly doubt they will ever be as popular as they were pre-boe, and a few dozen $ nerfs ago among other things.