tl;dr version of below: There might be some other things the Admin Shop would be nice to include.
Well, after stewing over the fact that Hera forcibly removed ~$67k from my Minecraft money account (because apparently spending hours upon hours farming a mob that was apparently broken is something worth removing all my work, without touching any others that did the same), I started actually thinking about the Admin Shop that was put in. I'm not gonna go into the pricing (since Hera seemed quite adamant about not listening any more), though I am glad some changes were made so it's more sensible. Otherwise, I noticed there were some items that were definitely needed in an admin shop already there, but also some that weren't, as well as some that didn't quite make sense.
Basically, I wondered "what should be in an Admin Shop?". I think it boiled down to two things. 1) An Admin Shop would cover the "rare" materials; things that are in rather small limited quantities on the server and that force the players to expand the map quickly in order to find the stuff, since it's hard to share them. 2) An Admin Shop would be great to cover the "basic" building blocks of most large structures in mass quantities, allowing players quick and easy access to large amounts of things they could normally get large amounts of anyways, for a price, but without destroying large tracks of land and (again) expanding the map faster than need be.
So, the current Admin Shop covers 1) with: diamond, gold, iron; and 2) with: cobble, coal, wood. Wood is kind of a bit iffy there, since it's an easily renewable resource, but since people use such massive quantities of it I guess it's fine (but then what about wool?).
The Admin Shop also has Glass and Stone on top of the above. I can see why Stone would be useful, since people use a lot, but with both cobblestone and coal already in the shop, what's the point? So people can skip the mass-smelting process? shrugs And as for the Glass, I would think Sand would be more suitable, since Sand also builds into Sandstone, another useful building block. Considering the number of beaches I've seen raped of Sand on the server, I hope it makes sense.
As for other blocks, here's a list of some things that could be added: (if anybody can think of more, I'll add them to the list)
Stuff that falls under 1): Clay, Lapis Lazuli, Lily Pads (they currently cannot be grown and only generate in Swamp biomes in small amounts), and maybe Glowstone and Nether Brick (when we first came to the server, all the accessible Glowstone in the vicinity of explored nether was gone, forcing us to expand the map to even find a small amount; and the nearby nether fortress seemed to be inhabited by several people, so it'd be rude to take the Brick).
Stuff that falls under 2): Sand, Dirt.
I'm sorry to be bringing this up now, since the upcoming work on Admin Shops had been announced a while ago. I tried to inquire earlier, but was told the admins were working on it, and they didn't seem to be wanting any help. I'm also sorry if I've given some sort of whining or condescending impression (I have gotten the distinct impression that Hera doesn't want to discuss anything with me, and probably doesn't like me); I haven't really needed to say anything up until now because the Admin Shop will have a definite impact on the work my friends and I have been doing, which has been centered around using the economy and try to do something with it because it's an interesting aspect. We're hoping to kick-start a player-based economy and the Admin Shops will be the primary competitor/supplier (if we even can compete) ^^