Four things I'd like to see implemented

[Nezerius]

I'm pretty sure you're thinking too ridgedly about what I was saying and trying to fit it in with current mechanics. I was saying SE has the ability to change the parameters and systems in place to accommodate for the change in the materia slot system. Simply put, they can change their game's rules in order to put a new system or mechanic in place so there wouldn't be any worry about it "not fitting in with the current day system". They had to change all kinds of things for combat classes for their new gauges and whatnot to be implemented, so they can do the same for putting in a new quality bar for crafting. It doesn't need to be shoe-horn'd in without any changes.

From what I can tell of the materia change in 4.0, the grade VI materia is giving much more stats because they can't be overmelded past the first overmeld, so the 4th/5th overmeld has to be done with grade V or lower (which you get showered with by playing the game)

I was also stating the logic of standards is completely hypocritical because the standard wouldn't hardly change anyways since you can still penta-meld and sell equipment. All it's doing is making it easier for the person to finish the melds and feel more inclined for doing so without spending another fat chunk of gil to accomplish that.

I'd hardly call overmeld DoW/M grade V materia to be "another fat chunk of gil", unless you also allow grade VI to be melded onto these extra guaranteed slots. In which case, having more materia slots would definitely become the new standard of crafted gear. There's nothing hypocritical about that, since I'm sure you can see how big a difference there is between a piece pentamelded with grade VI, and a piece pentamelded with 3x grade VI and 2x grade V.

If players would demand that there be a higher standard of melds available, why aren't they demanding that the materia already be affixed? It's the same end result, but nobody wants to be the poor sucker who has to sit there spending absurd amounts of gil and hours on end trying to overmeld.

Because it's not part of the actual recipe. The crafting part doesn't involve melding materia, just the overmelding afterwards.

Also due to how difficult I proposed it should be, very few people would actually require a crafter to accomplish such a feat. The end result would be the same thing we have now, the means to reaching that end result would simply be less painful for the customer and more fun for the crafter.

Most non-crafters don't really care about how difficult something is, they care about results. They want to get the most out of the materials they're giving to a crafter. Getting anything less than the most possible guaranteed materia slots would just make them feel like they lost out of something, just like something would feel miffed about getting a NQ version instead of a HQ version of a crafted piece.

All in all, I'd rather they spend their development time on revamping the materia system itself, to make it more interesting to start with, rather than developing a band-aid feature for crafted gear that makes it easier to deal with the current materia system.