This is a suggestion i have come up with that would make the use of gold ingots more useful. Firstly in NPC villages there should be a shop somewhere in the village and the currency is gold ingots. The items that you can purchase from the NPC's would be unnobtainable in the game by crafting so this would make the use of gold ingots more useful since using them as tools isn't really useful and it is quite abundant due the the 1.8 update. Please feel free to criticise my suggestion and add to it if you want.
Yeah obviously add it after the NPC's have came out lol
that would be pretty cool and it would add another use for pistons