Yoshi-P has recently said that crafted gear will never be BIS.

Speaking as someone who is about to get his last crafting class to 50 and loved it throughout version 1 (I actually preferred when you had to make every strap and buckle individually for your armour) I am just utterly resigned to it now being useless.

When new recipes come out I will jump on them for the initial week or two to make a quick buck (as furniture would have if housing weren't so unaffordable) and then forget I have a crafting class again. I might run crafting leves to make gil handing in HQs but that's about it.

So sad to have such a decent crafting system in place and absolutely no reason to use it.