As an (almost) master crafter, I can say that I seldom use this skill on normal lvl1-50 recipes. The only time it will ever see action on those kinds of recipes is if I'm leveling because it can reduce the amount of steps it takes to finish the progress on a synth. That being said, it is a fantastic abilitity to use in 1 and 2 star crafting as those recipe levels are far above your own. It means the difference in finishing the progress on a 2-star in 5 steps to finishing it in 3 steps.