How to keep old contents relevant

[Colorful]

you don't have to farm gil or craft, make some friends. and you get to clear content to progress. FATEs, Tomestones, Seals, DF drops, Treasure Maps are all acquired from PVE content.

I did already consider asking a friend, but if everyone were to ask their crafter friend what would its purpose serve exactly? Why not just have the ability to turn it into a NPC with the other item? Or is it just that is what the system is currently, but instead of improving how it's obtained, they introduce further RNG and needlessly shove crafters into it? That doesn't seem like a solution for either side to me.

because PVE content is where 90% of the development cost goes to. "dedicated crafting" has almost no content.

And how would a material obtained from PvE content add content to crafting classes? All I can see it doing is funneling more gil into their pockets, what purpose does it serve? If they want to utilize PvE drops in crafting, then it's already possible with gear that isn't the best of the best, and those things sell tons (hell I make the majority of my gil selling random drops to crafters). Should crafters be able to make better gear slightly weaker than Eso (or on par with un-upgraded eso if it's very costly), sure. But the best gear? No, the best gear should be obtained from PvE and solely from PvE. I'm sure the majority of crafters wouldn't appreciate it if they had to run Alexander Savage to obtain their AF2 gear.

Esoterics is too easy to cap as it is. that's a completely useless suggestion.

No, it gives variety to obtaining Esoterics and allows people to pick and choose what content they wish to do. That means more people queuing for all content, and not just whatever raid happens to have the particular item that's needed. It also doesn't lead to frustration over running content you don't want to do.