You know what would work really well?

A modified abjuration type system.

Crafters make the gear, make it so the gear is actually useful when it's crafted. Players can slot materia to it in this state as with any other crafted item. Players can also do dungeons to get items like abjurations that unlock the items hidden potential, which adds more stats to it. The materia that the player had added to the item is still kept on the item, and the quality of the item is still kept. You can still slot materia to it.

This way crafters are still in high demand to craft these items, and dungeons are still relevant because people will want to get the abjurations.

Along with this, having more dungeons that require crafters to craft weapons/armor from stuff that drops in the dungeon would work well, I still want my cool-looking stuff you can only get by clearing very difficult content :P