Repairing weapons would be the worst of all worlds. It would defeat the point of having to continually explore for them while keeping the problem of having them become in unusable during fights.
It's permanent weapons with inconvenience. So if you're going to have smithies, you might as well...
Yes. It worked well. It made every weapon you find something that may have value and made you consider how you go about things. Simply going slashy slashy isn't going to work here. You're surviving in the wild. You have to be smarter than that.
Maybe some weapons could have lasted a wee bit...