I can assure you that I'm not trolling, I'm merely curious why you think better gear would be a good reward - it comes up a lot indeed in threads like this, usually mentioned by some midlander with changing foren-accounts and names, so seeing it brought up by a Viera is a surprise for once!
To go through your points one by one:
I usually argue with people who confuse "difficulty" with the terrible RNG we had in ARR - and who seem to missremember that crafting was never difficult, just more or less RNG and more or less long rotations to combat that. My point always is: Introducing more RNG wont make crafting difficult or skillbased, it will make it luckbased.
I also dont believe in this idea thats being brought up constantly that people seem to wish to have a heavly gated "crafting elite" - crafting doesnt need to be super easy, but I dont see why we should lock people out of it or scare them away. The stepping stones in the past were incredibly hard - had an FC-mate once who reached level70 on their crafters about half a year (...maybe a bit more, even) into SB. They wanted to make their crafting gear themself and I had to convince them to let me craft it because they would have had to craft and fully meld two gearsets just to craft the next one (which would have been a terrible waste of material and materia).
Now... to answer your questions:
Why do I argue? - Mainly to figure out what people actually want. Often these rant-posts are not very easy to read, being littered with things like "lol" and suggestions that seem to me like they're not thought through. I'd like to see if common ground can be reached so that an actual suggestion can be made.
Whats the benefit of me wearing a Neo Ishgarding Top of Fending? - Several, actually. First of all, I wanted something to test my macro for the new crafts on. Secondly better stats for my tank - which will either allow for more wiggle room for myself and my healer in content or make playing certain content outright possible. Third, eventually I've been thinking of turning it into a glamour.
Whats the benefit of me wearing a Deepshadow Helmet of Fending? - Mainly better stats that allow me to survive tankbuster in E4S even if my healers are lagging out again.
-> this is basically what I already mentioned in regards to better battle gear being a good reward: It makes content clearable or easier to clear. While there are certain caps to the benefits of those stats aswell, they're not as hard as the caps on crafting stats. In crafting, once you reach the excat craftmanship, control and CP that you need for your rotation to work, there is no real benefit to increasing any of those - thus better gear is useless. At least in terms of stats. Glamour on the other hand...
Whats the benefit of me being a Roe? Hairstyles that fit my taste. And she looks like she could knock people out with a single punch. I like that.
Whats the benefit of me glaming my gear to look like a battle maid? I didnt know I did that... I'm almost curious to know what outfit the lodestone was displaying when you looked me up. Its not really important though, because the answer is: Because I think its an oufit that suits my character and looks good on her. Since I have to see her all the time while playing the game, I like putting her in outfits that I like seeing.
I still dont see how better gear-stats would benefit crafters right at this moment. I'm beginning to see why you still want "special crafter rewards gear", though - in the best case, something only a handful of people can achieve: To show off. What you - and some other hardcore-crafters who may or may not be the same person - seem to really want is displaying that you're part of this elite club.
And you constantly confuse things that are tedious with things that are difficult - by "favor gear" do you mean the gear you crafted from materials that required "favor gathering"? If so... yeah, that wasnt difficult - it honestly wasnt even that grindy... I remember that it took me a while to get into it, but after I did it wasnt to bad.
You also seem to contradict yourself here: You want something to "show off" - mounts, minions and titles are made with excatly that purpose. Thats why you see people afk'ing on their Savage-mounts in the endgame-hubs (and why people are upset that Eulmore doesnt allow for that) and why people run around with their "The Legend"-titles. They're a means to show off even if you dont want to display the weapon you got from Ultimate or dont like the design of the gear from Savage and/or replace said gear with something that has better stats. Mounts, minions and titles can be displayed without affecting your overall gear or glamour choice - and they're something the "hardcore elite" can work towards while still allowing everyone else to participate in the content. (I really dont believe in locking people out, sorry - nothing "casual" about it, just the general notion that everyone should be free to try every content on entry-level and then decide how much time and energy they want to invest into it)
Tools and gear (and RNG - how would RNG be a reward? Are you thinking about those boost-items we had in HW?), if we just consider the stats, only benefit a crafter as means to an end - and once you reach an amount of stats that lets you craft everything comfortably, there is no more reward there.
Showing off... can be done with mounts, minions, titles and glamour.
I suppose I'm not the right person to tell wether thats a worthy cause or not - I'm simply not one to show off. My glamour-, mount-, minion- and title-choice in game always aim to go well together and to create an image of my character that I like - not one to impress other people or show them how super cool and skilled I am. I never really understood this desire of people to display themselves as "someone whos better than the rest" in a game, but hey... if thats what you want, sure, request something as a reward that helps with it. Just keep in mind that it probably wont help crafters - just their egos.