Agreed; it needs a re-write. It's one of those things where the advantages went away as breakage left, and then someone decided to do something with it, and however noble their intentions were, there just wasn't follow through. What we're left with is a half-finished idea that is more of a penalty than a bonus. My suggestion would be to just throw out the whole idea of magical interferance or absorption, because as The Farmer said, those spots have been filled.
Take a fresh look at it: what is it, where does it come from, did it comes from another plane? or from space you say? So how about it becomes a weapon-only metal that can pass through armor/weapons, thereby bypassing some element of armor on a flare, or has variable AvD vs different metals, or bypasses elemental defense spells, or bypasses block/parry as it passes through weapons/shields, or some other such strange and wonderful new thing. That's just one thought, and I'm sure other people could come up with other ideas that would be equally nifty.
Make the change, add it to the conversion chamber, (or don't and only apply it to new veil iron weapons), and move on.
Whatever effort was made in the past just hasn't come to fruition. We respect those who make such efforts even when they don't succeed, but it's time to move veil iron back into the "special" category.
Kerl
