Nicobo, the issue lies in the fact that low level (lvl 1-49) crafting uses obscene amounts of shards compared to the rate of gathering.

I regularly burn 4000 shards per hour when making demimateria, how many hours of gathering does it take to get those shards?

The disparity continues when you look at the fact that the actual materials used to burn those 4000 shards take less then 30 min to gather.