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[UristMcArmok]

In the current version its very hard to harm something like steel weapons/armor with anything short of adamantine or a megabeast. If you look at a steel kitchen knife in real life it will dull from something as soft as an apple or a cut of meat. What I suggest is that weapons slowly lose edge from use and armor may become dented/fractured, reducing their effectiveness. Steel would still last significantly longer than copper, but still wear down if left without maintenance. The current wear naming system (xitemx/xXitemXx) could be replaced with a series of adjectives. Honed, Sharp(excluded for blunt weapons or ranged), Blunted, Chipped, Bent, Broken(could still be used but would be highly ineffective, but perhaps a broken sword might have a very sharp jagged edge right before it becomes unusable?) [from order of best to worst] and Reinforced, Sturdy, Dented/ragged , Torn/Punctured, Disheveled [for armor/clothing]. Weapons could be sharpened after production with a whetstone or by a soldier in their spare time between spars or training. A novice smith might chip a sword when hammering the steel, but a master smith may hit it just right to where it already has a good edge after its made. Maybe even once it reaches the chipped stage, its past the point of no return and you cant re-sharpen it because a significant amount of material has been lost, but anything of blunted or higher can be sharpened. Maybe just to make it less frustrating, a steel sword can be blunted by hitting soft targets, but never be chipped by soft targets unless it hits something hard like iron armor or megabeast bone?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Weapons and armour wear was introduced towards the end of 43.x cycle. (force too, which allows you to, for example, break someones neck with a bronze maul even if you don't damage the steel helmet around it).

You'd need quite a lot of adjectives to replace the xx system so you don't end up with meaningless descriptions like a 'chipped maul' (likely just as able to cave someone skull in as a regular one).

[Putnam]

wear already takes fractures and dents into account, which is precisely why steel is so difficult to wear down. dulling is the main actual suggestion here--it can be implemented in dfhack, but other than that it's not a thing right now.

[Detoxicated]

I could see a whole skill dedicated to it.
Maybe a system of honing weapons could replace traing weapons as you could create dull metal blades and such. I suppose skill gain should be higher with dulled metal blades than wooden training weapons.

[Ulfarr]

Personaly I find the adjective based system (as described in the OP) to be vastly inferior to the current one. You'll need a ton of adjectives to cover each set of item and wear level and you'll still end with just a bloated screen of overly long descriptions. The xXitemXx system, on the other hand conveys the meaning of each wear level faster, doesn't bloat that much the UI and can be applied to all items in the game.

I can see the merit of implementing a repair system, for the added roleplay value. For example, a fortress without easy access to magma/fuel, so melting the old items to forge new ones is not an option.