Crafting wouldn't be such a waste if it had a purpose beyond making materials for other crafters to use to level crafting.

i.e. gear and weapons and tools. If gear/weapons/tools weren't handed out so bloody easily on every single damned quest, for every class, then we may have something that people desired.

Perfect example: I came back with my ALC already nearly 50. I do all the class quests and get handed every single tool/offhand i needed through some fairly easy class quests. I secured my Luminary alembic in 1.0 only to realise i get a bloody Blue one which matches it stat-for-stat at level 50 ALC quest (which took me 5 minutes). So any armourers who, say wanted to make Alembics for ALCs, have absolutely no use in making Alembics.

This can be applied to every single craft which makes any tool/offhand. A similar thing is applied to every single craft which makes gear/weapons.

The only market is for HQ versions, but then people don't want to pay for them, because you can outlevel them so fast.

Add to that the nerfed as hell materia, so people are even reluctant to soulbind/convert gear for currently mainly useless materia.

In short: There is no incentive to recycle gear, make gear, or buy/sell gear!