So I was thinking the other day towards death penalties. I have two ideas:
1- The lost of durability drives the economy but what if deaths gave a debuff that reduced yield from stones or monsters for 30 second for example. This would cause hunters to deal half damage and miners to hit at half damage as well and only get half of what they want. Meaning they have to wait 30 seconds before doing normal damage and getting normal drops. This could be increased and then the death skill reduced the cooldown timer to where at max is 15 seconds or something or its 2 mins without it, just spit balling numbers without doing the math. Either way this would make dying a pain to recover from, i do however prefer my 2nd idea below.
2- There is the loss of potions effects currently in game and that could be amplified with more potions meaning that you loose more things. Such as the lamination potions lasting longer, when you die you loose that, maybe a double jump potion to. These buffs if designed correctly with the right recipe could also drive the economy also. Just some ideas as the death penalty is super harsh without skilling into it and once you skill into it, well it becomes easy mode. Think that with potions needing certain materials it would create a constant demand for certain items much like the gem tools in the previous update having a massive demand on coal. With this you could increase the variety of the required materials so a miner, lumberjack, dinner, hunter, etc… all get unique drops that make potions towards their certain profession. This most current update almost has that and its pretty sweet however, the current potion effects have I feel too short of a duration, maybe increase them to 5 mins or possibly more but this would need to be balanced with the recipes of course.
Just a suggestion or an idea. 
These are meant to be more of a spark towards other ideas/suggestions and are in no way refined or perfect but rather are ideas.
Respectfully,
-Levok