Imo a good way to boost the need for crafting, and money made by crafters would be to make trials require items that are crafted only as a main source.
an example would be the geodes, if the geodes had to be synthed first, there would have been plentiful material to craft with, and the finished product would have been valuable
of course geodes leaves you with basicly only goldsmithing, so it would be better to have new things
the problem is that high level crafters really cant make many things worth selling or having anymore, and nothing that is needed very often, every now and then you have something like shihei or arrows spike up and are worthwhile.. but for the most part they are all a waste of time. synergy is great and all but shouldnt be required to make anything decent.
blah blah blah /ramble