Don't know if this has been brought up already (besides the thread where I first mentioned it in the Alpha playtest), but I wanted to bring this up one last time.
Rarely can a PC afford a masterwork anything at 1st level (the only exception that comes to mind is the CW Samurai, who only gets his masterwork katana through DM fiat, as suggested by the book). Ergo, sometime later in the game, when it is no longer level-appropriate for a weapon-user to be using anything that doesn't have an enhancement bonus, the PC must get rid of his weapon for a new one.
My first character had a short sword that, according to her backstory, she stole from a corrupt noble. We started the campaign at level 2, so I had enough wealth to have bought that sword masterwork at character creation, but I didn't think to do that until after the campaign started. As it happened, I had a local blacksmith reforge the blade into a masterwork one.
That kind of a work-around of the rules should not be necessary to keep the rules from interfering with the story that the rules are supposed to be assisting in the telling of.
Ergo, I suggest some kind of a process, alchemical, magical, what-have-you, that allows you to apply a permanent enhancement bonus to a weapon/shield/suit of armor even if it isn't masterwork. Have it cost the same (including double the cost for a double weapon), and, if necessary, have the fact that the item counts as masterwork be the only benefit (i.e., no +1 to attack rolls, no decreasing the armor check penalty by 1).
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This is pretty much what happens in the Lord of the Rings. Aragorn starts with what used to be a cool sword, and has to get it fixed up before he can use it. It's a pretty common theme in fantasy novels as well, for a protagonist to have an item that they have to 'unlock' or 'master' or whatever.
Barring this sort of informal situation, where the player and DM work it out in advance, the best solution seems to be a tweak on the Ancestral Weapon feat that allows the character to devote exp over time to beef up a specific starter weapon. While the 'flavor text' suggests that this is some passed down family legacy / heirloom, but it's just as easy to ignore the flavor and say that the character gained this sword by stealing it or finding it in a barrow or on a battlefield or something, to explain why peasant-farmer X has a sword that has the potential to be a +4 keen holy whatever.