I think Appraisal could have a niche as a skill that not only provides detailed information about things, but also lowers difficulty checks for other skills/systems. Here are a few back-of-a-napkin ideas about what it could become:

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Defending - Accurately appraising a creature could give a temporary boost to defending ability against it and others of its type.

Athletics - This already exists, and my suggestion is to expand this idea to other systems.

Locksmithing - Like Athletics, appraising a locked box with sufficient skill could give a boost to disarm and lockpicking attempts against it.

First Aid - A new "appraise wounds" command could lower difficulty checks for tending wounds, and maybe give more detailed information about penalties and the rate of vitality loss.

Skinning - Appraising a dead creature could both grant appraisal experience and lower the difficulty for successfully skinning it.

Crafting - Appraising a project in progress could grant a reduction in difficulty. The Appraisal skill would contest the difficulty level of the project and grant reduced difficulty for the remainder of that project if successful.

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All of these uses would depend on a skill check between Appraisal and the difficulty of the contest (i.e. appraise vs creature level, box difficulty, wound level, crafting template difficulty, etc).