It wasn't this way in 2.x. Crafted gear had real uses, mats weren't gated behind ephemeral nodes gated behind RNG, we didn't have a red scrip system that was supposedly designed to help people gear up without spending tons of gil, but has failed to do so, etc. etc. Really it just seems you're arguing for the sake of arguing.

What I described is that there's a real, definitive work versus reward ratio in this patch regarding gearing. Crafters having a lot of things to spend gil on is only good if there's a decent carrot in it for them, and there just really isn't one at the moment. I've made most of my gil in this patch while avoiding the specialist recipes and red scrip system, and it isn't just to FC members I'm selling to.

If you don't think there's a work to reward ratio problem in HW, then that's on you. I'm pretty sure my sentiments have been echoed by plenty.