Most people would say that it depends upon the GM. A lot of GMs like to keep their players a bit Hungry for silver, with the occasional bonanza that lets the players feel great. On the other hand if the characters are spending 80% of their calendar days in major cities while the spellcasters do research and the party weaponsmith personally forges every characters weapons and armor, because they can't afford to hire NPCs to do
any of the grunt-work for them, then maybe the GM should consider upping the rewards of adventuring as compared to downtime activities.
That having been said, if you look at page 5 of this
Westmarches house rules link, you will see the table that shows what the Earthdawn Westmarches group came up with for fair LP and SP awards per session.
Personally, I feel the Silver awards in that document might be a bit generous. But they also have things like Research costs costing an absurdly high amount of money as well. So there is some wiggle room as far as high costs, high pay vs low costs and low pay. I would suggest that at most tables the GM monitor his players expenditures and use weapon and armor forging as a guild. If his players are getting their weapons and armor forged at more than 2 ranks above their circle, he ought to consider tightening up their rewards a bit. If their forgings are 2 ranks less than their circle, be a bit more generous so they can hire NPCs to do the forging quickly.
