I think WoL are great, specially when the players just find it. Then they have to understand the omen and learn about the history of the item. Finally, the legacy rituals are really interesting, and how each player decides to carry out it is better. The only problem is that these intems are invaluable, and the party member lucky enough to get one of this will simply provoke that the other members feel jealous. One solution I gave it was, in one campaign, giving WoL to every member of the party (not freely, of course), and one to the villain. This made them seek to accomplish more and more rituals throughout the campaign, and finally it ended in a battle of epic proportions, with powerful weapons and amazing powers.
Well I think its a great idea. I'm developing a couple of weapons right now. One I'm using from the book (Divine Spark) and one I created myself using the rules, which I call Talon. Although I have 4 players, 2 of them had received heirlooms before starting on their adventure. They are now level 4 and they are about to find out about their Legacy Weapons.
I don't like the idea to sacrifice some class powers, spells, st bonuses etc...to get others powers from a WoL, I prefer that sacrifices come from money for the ritual or magical object destroyed/incorporated to power it and also slaying specific creatures containing bits of the scattered powers.
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I think WoL are a great idea, though not necessarily brilliantly executed in the book. For example, a lot of the weapons give you a penalty on your To Hit - so while it may be a +5 weapon, it gives you a -2 penalty to hit. Where's the logic/benefit in that? But if you find alternative sacrifices that maybe make sense (maybe restrictions on what a player can do in a roleplaying sense, which might be difficult to convey out of the context of a specific campaign and character, rather than a crude To Hit penalty mechanic or such like) the possibilities are tremendous - pregnant with potential, one might (not) say.
I happen to enjoy WoL quite a bit. Currently, I have a group in an Oriental Campaign where the one guy who has any has two (Ur and Stalker's Bow)
However, my best interaction with the book took place outside the roleplaying arena. I attended the Boy Scout National Jamboree last year, and in case you hadn't heard, it was hotter than any of the Nine Hells. At one point the heat index was 126F! I'm from Washington state, so this was unbelievable. Anyway, My troop got in line for an arena show. There were 40,000 boys attending, and that day an additional 35,000 people visited as guests. Everyone went to the arena show, and I would say my group was in the last 1/4th of the entire procession. We had been standing for about 10-15 minutes, when one of my friends there asked me if I had any D&D stories (No one else had really played enough to have stories, and also I have a great storytelling voice.) Anyhow, I had bought WoL about 2 weeks before leaving, and hadn't brought it with me. So I started telling item legacies. Within 5 minutes, half the 40 boy troop was doing nothing but listen to me, and I didn't run out of stories until another 30 or so minutes later. By this time, we were only 10-15 minutes from the arena, and the rest of the day was fantastic.