Honestly, I think this crafting system needs an even bigger overhaul than what they've had to do to get auto attack and class / rank merged. The original idea that appears to be present in the crafting system is a move towards quality crafting, and as both of you point out (referring to Atoli and Perrin), alternate means to gaining ranks need to be employed in order to avoid burning out on a mini-game that is really meant more so for final production than parts manufacturing. They probably need to have a different, less involving system of creating parts to compliment a more game like final product creation process.