My proposition for ToH vouchers was because it's a once a month event that gives around 70-90 people EACH the chance to get it. It allows individuals to choose whether or not they want to keep the voucher for them self or to sell it off to other players. This allows people who can't make the ToH a chance at buying it from the vast amount winners who were able to make it.
As for trade status, I think it's fine with it requiring a GM service. It ends up being balanced if it's made equivalent to a ToH voucher and would force people to use GM services through donating or v4p.
As for the mining idea, it gets very tricky as to what the drop percentages should be. Obviously if it's to high then the server will be flooded with them since there's no restriction to how to how many a person can get. If the percentages are to low and were forced to mine 30 hours to get 1 well... It becomes a problem of casual vs hardcore gamer I guess...
Muspel being the only in game method of getting it right now though is terrible.