Shards don't really add anything besides a super boring time sink (time sinks are good, boring is not). They're not even interesting to gatherers because they're permanently level 1, so you can't level off of them in any meaningful way. It's a meaningless roadblock to crafters that ends up supporting RMT. Shards in their current implementation are a straight up detriment to the game, and the game would be better if they were simply removed.

I welcome any fixes to the shard system, but seriously just remove them wholesale and it would be a better game.