Well, you are a few years late OP.

Tanaka's 1.0 was like this, all gears were crafted and the NMs back then (Great Buffalo, Uraeus, etc.) drops mats so you can craft the rare gears.
Crafting was a very important part of the game and almost everyone was forced to craft at least for your own repairs because the repair NPC's price was crazy high.

It was a fun experience and I do like the idea because having a piece of gear drop directly from a monster kinda makes no sense to me.
Having the material drop, like Uraeus Skin dropping from the Uraeus and you bringing it to a crafter to make it into the Silver Tricone seems a lot more reasonable.

But then again, not everyone likes to be forced to craft and the economy were controlled by the crafters back then.
If you didn't know a good crafter or is a good crafter yourself, you are pretty much screwed.
People actually called it Final Crafting Fantasy back then before Yoshi-P took over.

Oh, those were the days....