I'm definitely for these changes.

A lot of people against this seem to be calling it 'dumbing down' or 'making it too easy.

The challenge of crafting should come from skillful use of abilities, and masterful judgement on which synthesis to use at which time to attain the desired result.

Adding extra steps to get to the final result is not a measure of skill - but a measure of patience.

Tedium =/= skill.

As for the removal of sub-requirements and facility requirements I almost got upset over those - but then I read how they were planning ways to reward multiple levelled crafts and a different use for facilities. Something more creative than "if you don't have this your crafts gon' exploooooode!"

If there needs to be more depth in the crafting system - it's in the actual mini-game. Not the tedious, multi-step recipes.