Right now runes are pretty useless. Most older players don't trade for high runes anymore. I like the idea that beginners could spend time farming runes and fragments to trade for equipment that they cant farm alone.
In official Diablo 2 high runes are required to create the highest tier of items, so it makes sense to have them as currency. In Annihilus runewords are not as strong as the top tier uniques and are only valuable for beginners.
I propose to create a use for the high runes so that even the guys who already own the best items can use them. My personal suggestion is to make a cube recipe which consumes high runes (eg Xers) and removes enchantments from items giving back the scrolls and the consumed item. That way people will have more opportunity to test out enchantments without waiting for the perfect item to enchant. Also this way we might see the first "The Old One" enchantment