Funcom should bring back the attribute bonuses for war paints; nobody uses them, but they exist. I believe it would make more sense to buy them. It could be some kind of attribute bonus like before, something minimal, but enough to motivate people to use them, since there are some very beautiful paints out there.
It would also bring back more purpose for the Dyer’s Bench - which is something the devs clearly want, since they locked dyeing to it in a much more restrictive (and, ironically, less realistic) way in order to force more players to use it. If functional warpaints were returned to the game, then we could also have the dyer’s bench returned to its old functionality, which would make looted dyes meaningful in the early game again, and would make the entire dyeing process less of an irritation.
Good idea. Looted warpaints currently are wasted inventory slot - or, to be precise, even several slots, because they don’t even stack. Feels wrong.
You guys got a new update with a worthy engine. Dream bigger. Instead of attribute bumps, think effects. One gives you night sight, one gives you invisibility, one gives you extra speed or climbing resistance or jumping or etc etc etc.
I think I’ll want to see what night vision actually looks like in the new engine before i can agree to that, lol. Can you imagine a longer term version of Argossean Dream Dust? 
That said, yeah, functional definitely doesn’t have to mean just attribute bonuses, other options would certainly be cool. But any kind of functional would IMO be better than the current situation.