I'm just going to throw this out here since a lot of people are stressing out about it:
"Using all HQ mats guarantees an HQ item" does not mean "using all HQ mats is the only way to make an HQ item"
I'm pretty sure you can still craft HQ stuff in much the same way you do now, with the amount of HQ mats being used affecting how easy it is to create an HQ item.