Why gear should be craftable:

[Shipp]

The game shouldn't make craftable gear better than drops. Neither should it be the other way around where drops make craftable gear useless. It should be a nice mix like it was in XI. Too many craftable items being needed causes crafters to corner the market like what happened in XI. If they introduce dungeons for every 5-10 levels or so with gear obtained from there, it lessens that corner to a few items.

Edit: Typo in the first sentence. The game SHOULDN'T make craftable gear better than drops-

[Shai]

The game should make craftable gear better than drops. Neither should it be the other way around where drops make craftable gear useless. It should be a nice mix like it was in XI. Too many craftable items being needed causes crafters to corner the market like what happened in XI. If they introduce dungeons for every 5-10 levels or so with gear obtained from there, it lessens that corner to a few items.

As long as crafting gear can always edge out ahead of NM dropped gear (not NM dropped mats for gear, mind you, but completed gear) I'm ok with that. As long as NM (completed) gear is Untradeable, I'm ok with that, too. It's just a pretty fine line to walk and already I choose shitty gear (because stats are meaningless) over better, crafted gear because I have no incentive to spend gil when I can get shit for free and wear it into the ground, throw it away and get Faction NM gear for my 50 jobs (which are neither Untradeable or Crafted, though Crafted is often equal to or slightly better than - which is kinda weird situation all around, I think).

The game pushes crafters out of the mainstream little by little every patch since Yoshida started.