That's a theme with you in this discussion. You speak a lot about things you have never seen. Why should the dev team listen to you?
Well don't, if the trading game is now solely reserved to traders. If that's your goal that we must rely on the traders for absolutely everything that deals with food, then keep it that way, and maybe they'll be able to do the things I feel everyone should be able to do. Or maybe they won't: I can't say, priests can't be traders.
You didn't like my example? Yet is was an extremely simple and probable one. Not an "if 1, and if 2, and if 3, and if 4, then X". See:
If you count the ten I just posted in Libidizedd, I can probably see at least 25. And almost all of those are Buys.
And that is, again, from an island location. When people are slowly starting to use it, but a lot still haven't.
I'm sorry, but I just feel the design is deficient. Without auto-buy and with offers not being able to be partially taken up, this can have no other possible consequence than offer spam. So maybe traders can partially match offers? So what? I'm TRYING to look at the class distribution chart, and can't say which of the tiny unidentified slices the traders are. Are only lord/traders allowed to comment and discuss the new system?
As a lord and duke, under the new system, I feel completely powerless over my duchy's food situation. The interface is also extremely awkward, with the offer spam, and unpleasant, with the notice spam.
I get that it's better code. I get that it helps to streamline a few operations. And I get that it's not meant as an upgrade of the old system, but as a replacement.
But I don't like it. The lowered range, the decreased flexibility, the lack of automatic purchases and sales, the forced expiry dates, the forced prices (even if they are in my realm's favor), the increased dependance on traders...