Gathering shards takes to long.

[Fors]

I agree. I'm really surprised that you can't break down a Crystal into, say 25 shards like you suggested.

Then you could just mine the Crystals and break them down to use for more expensive recipes.

Adding to this, it would also be nice if you could "combine" smaller shards into crystals and crystals into clusters. Perhaps it could be an alchemist ability?