I'm curious why these fish keep eating leopard print swimsuits. Also, why can my gatherer retainers bring back things that I can't find and I'm better geared than they are?

My understanding is that certain fish can be desynthed directly into this cloth. Information is kinda sketchy and I'm not yet to the point of being able to catch and desynth everything CUL yet.

I suspect you're going to get mixed reviews on your secondary premise. It's worth what people are willing to pay and people are willing to pay a lot for a vanity item (pets/glamour/etc). I may know that paving stones are stupidly cheap to make, but if someone is willing to drop 30k for them then I'm selling them for 30k.