ALC is going to be very valuable as long as it creates an item that is required for every end game gear craft in the game, like dissolvents/reisuis/fibers. I can't really imagine any point where it wouldn't feel near mandatory with how they've been handling craft balancing. Every single end game crafted gear set in HW required items ALC made - astral oil, luminous fiber, grade 2 and 3 dissolvents. Which is why I'm very strongly against specialists crafting components.

I also don't think "just switch your specialists" is the best solution as you're limited on how many times you can switch per week and again ALC is required for everything so you might as well keep it around if you want to be self-sufficient.

That being said, removing CUL and ALC specs would not be a good solution.