Why is Crafting still in the game?

[Ddmk]

Ok lets take this example. you can buy darklight hands waist and feet for the cost of crafting 1 of these items.
Yes you can pentameld the crafted items if you have a few million Gil to waste to do it.
I agree crafted can be better but the cost of mats and materia is too high for such a small gain.
Thus the improvement should start with base stats and be improved even more with materia IMHO

Crafting gear will always be 20ish levels lower than best gear,but due to the cost I still think it should be better .