I believe if SE removed crafting all together and marginalized repairing at NPC's they would lose only 1-2% of their current subscriptions yet they would gain more than 10% of those who have already quit.

My question to people who craft is why do you craft? What is your goal?

As Gladiator my goal is to tank the most difficult enemies in the game with my friends. And yes, if a good looking piece of armor drops or weapon that help me do that better then I get really excited, the items dropped by said enemies are like trophies of accomplishments for me and my friends. It is a virtual display of my skill and the skill of those of whom are in my company.

The ONLY time I would ever desire to level a craft is if it helped me accomplish my goal.

As my friends and our ability to accomplish our goals increase then so should our rewards.

This is, from my 13 years of MMO experience, what we call FUN.

My question still is what is YOUR goal people who craft?

There are only a few possibilities that I can see:

1. You want gil. But why? It's worthless. Only thing you can buy in game with gil is gear. And why would you need gear... to craft more gear? There is no goal in this cyclical reasoning. So either you are selling gil or your goal is something else.

2. You want gear. But why? You're a crafter. If a enormous dragon appears over Ul'dah are you going to throw stones at him and then blind him with you shinny gear? The point is you have no skill that matters. What skill does it take to craft? It requires zero skill, zero strategy and no coordination with others. I could train a mouse to rank up a crafting class 1-50 as it is now. So what do you gain as a crafter if gear is useless to you?

3. You are masochistic. You do painful things for sexual pleasure. Please stop playing this game and see a psychologist.

4. You want to manipulate the market for your own personal gain. AH here's the truth... and probably describes most people who craft. You want to craft difficult items for profit so that you can buy what ever you want in the game including gear to help you damage/tank/heal in scenario X. You are the same kind of people that believe money buys friends and happiness. You want people who have talent to need you because you yourself have zero talent. Please GTFO.