I'd be a lot happier and more productive in leveling crafters, if I could just craft directly from the retainer inventory instead of requiring it to be on my character. SWTOR does this (frankly the only good thing they've done) with the storage.

You can store everything in your storage, and craft with all of your characters while none of them are required to have it in their direct inventory. It pulls from shared storage, personal storage and what is on the character so you can craft and not fill your bag with components on the character.