I think the real shock to the system with this particular brand of expert recipes stems from the lack of difficulty with every other facet of crafting. HQs are assured as long as you follow a certain script. Equip yourself with certain gear. Meld that gear a certain way. HQ a few of the intermediate steps (alkahests for example). Use your crafting abilities in a certain order, ignoring crafting states with clever use of Tricks of the Trade, and you will have a guaranteed HQ item.

The Water Otter Fountain parts turns that all on its head. You can't just follow a script to assure success every time. You can't just ignore condition states like you are used to doing. You can't necessarily focus on all progress (minus 1 step) and then quality since all those Malleable conditions might as well be normal.

You have to not only learn to embrace these conditions and how best to use them but also learn to embrace failure. You will fail. And you will fail a lot when you first try.

I used food and draught for a few hours just running Trial Synthesis before I found a "formula" that was moderately successful. Of course, it is RNG dependent. There is only so much you can do against bad RNG. However, if the lack of assured success on a given synth is going to be your barrier, then this isn't for you. And not every facet of the game is for everybody.