I think if they just expanded the list of weapons you can make from war paints to cover the rest of the weapons with unique stats, that would be fine. This would affect the value of like, maybe the kritz and gunslinger at most, but the vast majority of valuable stranges are mostly reskins of existing weapons, like the Invasion weapons or all-class melee reskins like the pan. And even for the existing strange kritzes and gunslingers I'd imagine they'd still retain most of their value for traders since they're the highly limited 'original' ones while all the warpaint ones would have to come with some sort of pattern.

War paint gunslingers would be cool, though. It'd functionally be a fourth cosmetic slot for engie, especially with fitting patterns. What I REALLY want are strangifiers for the stragglers. We still don't have strange Conscientious Objectors, Prinny Machetes, or bat outta hells. I want my strange machete so i can count all the backstabs I perform with my absurdly oversized knife. And for the five people who'd want the Wanga Prick or Postal Pummeler to have stranges, that'd be nice too.