I can kind of agree, you shouldn't have to craft and gather to over meld, and having materia for crafting / gathering is kind of stupid.
I was hoping this thread would be more about the materia system in general and how it is over all just kinda crap.
It is weird to me that crafted gear is able to be pentamelded while raid drops are not. It sadly makes everything you did before a new savage patch obsolete because pentamelded crafted gear in most cases is going to be the better option.
The material in general is a boring RNG system that could be a lot more interesting and fun.
If you ask me how it could be more interesting and fun, I don't know it's not really my job to figure that out it's Yoshi P and his teams job.