Pink gear from the airship exploration can be spiritbonded and assimilated to get free materia. Or you can just buy the materia, assuming it's cheap. If the Hard missions are actually challenging this change will solve 3 problems at once:

1. Crafters will be useful for end game because they can meld gear for more people than just tanks.
2. People won't run out of things to do because on top of running the raids there will also be raid preparation to do as a group.
3. More customization options.

Excellent! It worked well in WoW so I don't see why it wouldn't work here.