The crafting changes are amazing. I will be getting to work on low rank gear as soon as the patch hits, I've been seeing too many horribly overpriced at low ranks. Now it won't take me an entire day to make a set of armor. I had a lot of friends at launch that were leveling crafting to make their own gear and surprise, they couldn't because you needed high level crap from other classes or stuff required 10 steps (involving things needed from other classes). There's a difference between wanting to be self-sufficient and simply wanting to be able to do SOMETHING. Now low rank crafters will actually be able to make stuff and feel they are contributing to the community.

Getting rid of guild/treatise requirements and instead making them a bonus is great. You should never be penalized for wanting to do anything (aka XP/SP Fatigue). They already stated that getting guild support is being planned to temporarily raise your craft rank. This will not only perform the same function as the guilds used to (which was make items easier to craft), it will also enable people to succeed at items they wouldn't be able to otherwise and get more SP from crafting higher level stuff. I guarantee you treatises will still be great and will be either a Bonus to your craft rank while making relevant items, a bonus to progress/quality/success etc while crafting, or a higher chance to HQ.