I have a solution that would take a minimal amount of time to implement (a couple of days of development). Instead of simply adding more squares to the already existing grids in the vaults, why not create tabs for each section in the vault. The tabs would be separate pages or sections and could be used to separate each section into different sub-types or categories.
For example, the weapons section could be broken into three tabs, primary, secondary and heavy. Armor could be broken down to the specific armor type helmet, gauntlets, etc. The misc. section could be broken down into consumables, materials, shaders, ships, sparrows, etc.
This would allow us to store more items in our vault and it would give us more "real estate" or view-able area in which to store our vault items. It would help us organize our vault and if developed correctly it could help address the memory issue. By fetching the data from the database when a tabbed page was actually displayed and unloading it when a tab was switched this would lower the memory footprint. Since the game would only need to load the items currently displayed in the opened tabs for the user this should alleviate the memory issue last generation systems are facing. This would also allow for future scalability.
The current solution really doesn't address any of these issues. Many of us have very little free space on our characters and in our vaults. The vaults are cluttered, disorganized and tiny. This would be a great improvement on your current system.
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What if tabs require too much memory (a lame excuse, I know, but already put to use). There are multiple vault stations in the tower. What if one vault station showed you nothing but weapons, and had all the slots we have now but just weapons. Then another vault station for armies and a third for miscellaneous? It's like the tab solution, but takes no more screen space than we have now and no new controls to be developed.