Personally I don't think synergy should ever have been a flat out alternative to traditional synthesis. The entire system is based around giving bonuses to a very restrictive set of recipes because, as far as I am concerned, there was never a real need for synergy to be introduced in the first place and therefore an artificial set of benefits needed to be added. I would have liked to have seen synergy become a collaborative synthesis system for all recipes, particularly those with difficult or impossible to attain multiple subcrafts, though that's another matter entirely though I suppose...

Did they ever give a reason why they would not be fixing this issue? I am curious as to what possible reasons they might give. Any extra demand for materials cannot be that significant, and even if it does exist I think the benefits to synthesis as a whole almost certainly outweigh that demand. If SE is willing to ensure that synergy recipes cannot break, the "extra materials" reason can't be that compelling to them either.

HQs are nice and I suppose they do even out in the long run (sometimes), but for someone who doesn't do massive batches in one go they don't really help - especially if you're only 15 or 20 or so above cap. It's always best to have a little extra than not enough when static stack sizes are concerned - if it's really necessary spares can be thrown away or NPCed, for which there is not a counterpart for having insufficient items for a stack

Thanks for your responses I will go back to detonating raw fish all over the walls of the cooking guild.