Vorph
Silver Baronet of the Realm
Yeah, loot is pretty messed up. Someone who does the cheese quest at the recommended level of the quest gets:After going around and finishing all but a few ?'s in Velen, I'm definitely seeing the loot scale with my level. The thing is, it's always 3-4 levels lower than your current level so it's not necessarily easy to recognize the scaling. It seems like your current level is the ceiling, but unfortunately there isn't a floor (minimum level).

While I did it at level 14 and got:

Not to mention that the stats are randomized, and I got shittier rolls than he did. The sword was useless to me anyway, since L13 is plain feline swords and L14 is upgraded griffin swords. It's probably not worth worrying about to any great degree though. I can't see bothering to leave side quests and POIs until you're in your 30's (realistic level cap seems to be ~35 without exploits) just to hope that you get relic gear that's better than the superior Witcher sets. You'd miss out on a ton of other recipes, for one thing. It would have been nice to be able to do them when you're 1-2 levels shy of the next tier of crafted items, but unfortunately the level-3 ceiling ruins that.
There's a couple halfling vendors around, one in Novigard and the other north of Oxenfurt that sell a whole bunch of recipes. I know I bought my enhanced swallow from a vendor.Not being able to find the recipes I'm looking for is driving me crazy. Already finding superior (tier 3) versions of some potions and I haven't found the swallow upgrade, for example.
Look for the potion or herbalism vendors on your map as you wander around.