The blind white-knighting is offensively delusional. It's quite prudent to not freak out given the lack of details on the specialization system, but to say the devs have super fun sunshine and rainbows in store for it is naive.

I'm not freaking out. I'm thinking rationally and inferring what the specialization system has in store based on past design decisions and the few statements made about the specialization system at PaxEast. I do not like what the system is shaping out to be. It is better to voice the concerns of what you would dislike about a system while there is still time to make changes to it.

Omnicrafters level all of the crafting jobs for many reasons--making gil, being self-sufficient, helping their friends/FC mates, enjoying the crafting system--not just because one feels obligated in order to do end-game crafting (which, btw, the devs have no one to blame but themselves for people needing to have all the crafts maxxed and at least GSM desynth maxxed in order to participate in end-game crafting). I want to be able to craft every recipe I am otherwise capable of crafting whenever I desire. I should have an equal probability of HQ'ing a synth whether I am specialized or not. While specialized, I should not be locked out of another classes' special recipes if I have unlocked them. Any system that goes against these principles is not a system I support.

From what I have seen so far, that's exactly what the specialization system is going to do. You will select a specializationa and "level" it up in some way, unlocking special recipes and/or actions/traits. You can only make these synths while in that specialization. You can switch specializations after a given amount of time (whether in-game or RL), keeping your progress like GCs.

For me, that's no good at all. However, if specializations granted other perks, or allowed people that only wanted to do a couple of crafts the ability to make end-game crafts I'd be all for it.

1) Allowing 1/2-star to be quick synthed.
2) Increasing HQ percentage of quick synths.
3) Reducing material cost of 1/2-star 40 durability crafts.
4) Removing shard/cluster/crystal cost up to a certain level.
5) Granting cross-class equivalent abilities for players that only want to level x craft instead of all of them, allowing 3/4/5-star crafting.
6) No loss of materials on failed synths.

The only exception to the above is content that is supposed to be group/FC crafting. Airships/Houses I'm fine if we are only locked into one class until switching. If the airships and houses will require as much co-op play, time and money they say it will, then it only makes sense to have those participating specialize and contribute in a specific way for a given amount of time.