Can't you use SoF+ graphics and have them just look like rusty shortswords on Tit. clients? Give people incentive to upgrade
They won't even look like rusty short swords. Unlike races and item icons, item graphics don't default, they simply don't exist. I.E. you'll be slashing with your empty fists.
I agree with the incentive though. I've said this before but EQEmu hit a roadblock with SoD where GMs don't want to create content for SoD until more players use it, yet players don't wanna get SoD until content is made for it. Thus it's a deadlock in a way and until one of those groups steps forward the client will never be used to it's full potential.
However whether Hunter uses any though is up to him. Probably won't though out of fear of causing butthurt from Craptanium users. I can tell you i don't work like that though.
As a matter of fact, ask Akkadius how much i push the boundaries on SoD content on BoTA lol. He'll log on one day and EVERYTHING will have SoD weapon graphics in hand, 90% of all items have SoD icons and there's fricken Sirens and minotaurs and other SoD races everywhere XD. Akk feels the same way i do but doesn't wanna alienate Titanium users, he's probably scared i'll do something one day that breaks Titanium compatibility. Luckily i'm not that stupid :3.
In all honestly though Titanium limits a GM's ability to create. From a dev stand point one of the largest issues is the spell file. SoF/SoD/UnD can read literally tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of spell ids, where as Titanium can only read 9999 and most of those are already used with the stock spell file. With a server that makes immense amounts of spells (for example raising the level cap with content releases and adding new spells/discs for each class for each new level) that server quickly runs out of room, forcing them to either break Titanium compatibility or cease content creation (at least quality content). Another issue is that limiting yourself to Titanium means you can only use a small percentage of the content you have access to (as we're seeing here with epic graphics). It's like being handed 3 million dollars and being told "you can only spend $1000 of it though."
Anyway, rant aside, people really should just switch. Anything you've heard about SoD being less stable and more broken than Titanium is 100% false and the switch will be something i promise you won't regret.