ИДЕЯ ДЛЯ РИЗОМА

Add a small, small random chance of getting a random boss mat or a supreme harvest mat during an extraction. maybe only 1 in 1000 extracted mats on average. Adding an element of chance would make a grindy task a tiny bit less grindy.

Could also be money or gubani wheel rewards in there. It is the ground after all, who knows that homins have dropped?

Yes.
No.

I'd back this only if there was an equal chance of a KP spawning.

Any digger afraid of DP must be male!

A small chance of getting a material of a higher grade would be nice.

When I dig (up to) fine materials to train, any higher grade is not what I want...

I'm not convinced. I usually choose the material I want to dig carefully, both by type and grade.Additionally, the random chance to spawn higher-grade material de-valuates the skill and effort needed to find excellent and supreme mats.Adding this as random element would IMHO overall be detrimental. Instead encourage people to team-up for digging and make it a nice chatter-party which coincidentially also digs for mats.

Harvesting is the one thing that isn't broken in this game and doesn't need either additions or changes.
Instead of developing ways handing out more rewards, be that by chance or through grind, I'd rather like seeing actual content wrapped up in quests and storyline.

I don't think Jorg's intention was to make it a viable option to avoid digging Exe and Sup mats.... it certainly wasn't mine. But I see no harm in adding a little bit of chance such that you might get a lil' surprise once and a while. And it wouldn't have to be a mat .... let it be a piece of lost jewelry, a purse of dappers, a bottle of rum.

If you dig 2 hours a day, every day for a year.... I can't see how anyone can conclude that getting 6 - 10 such surprises in a year will change how folks harvest, devalue the skill / effort of getting those mats or ruin anything in any way. I can not see how adding a smile to a player's face a few times a year is a bad thing, In no conceivable way impact gameplay That being said, I do agree that any change must have a suitable ROI.

That's not the all to common "focus on what I want, not what anyone else would like" response, it's just that the reward must be worth the staff time investment. If it can be done in a few key strokes, I'd vote for the smiles. If it meant a "team" had to be assembled or days of development time, then while the idea has merit, and I like it enough to add to the 2020/2021 Ideas for Ryzom list,not in a position to judge what it might take to implement.

I do my best to make digging less boring to all. Altho my efforts are limited to few regions... I do my best to put some sensation into digging...

I limited my comments to what I saw as the intent of the original post ... that being "pleasant and welcome surprises". I'll not comment on the other kind :)