What is the purpose of the Shards / Crystals?

This might be a bit of an odd question, but I've been kind of wondering what exactly the purpose is of these things. In crafting, we already have a limit to how much we can do via the available materials we get from the gathering professions, and unlike Final Fantasy XI we aren't making things via "pure imagination", and have forges and equipment available to make items out of.

It could be argued that shards and crystals serve purposes such as providing heat for forges and other details while out on the field, but wouldn't it be simpler to just use conventional means to do this? And has anyone found an NPC that at least talks about why crystal shards are necessary when we have forges and other conventional means that do the same thing? :confused:

They'r actually useless right now. Mostly people just toss them. You can give them to me if you like though.