That's just semantics.
Lucis ARE indeed crafter's version of relics. Why?
Because when expansion rolls around, having all the lucis tools + artisan's gear fully melded WILL indeed grant you an advantage to advancing to the next tier of crafting.
I imagine when heavensward first rolls out, new crafting mats will be very costly. Yet, there will still be people buying them (I hope to be one of those people) to be the server first 5star crafter or whatever and make money on monopolizing the market for a short while. and having the best tools will probably let you get away with having to use a little bit less of them.
If somebody's simply uninterested in that, and don't mind waiting a few weeks to progress then by all means, skip Lucis. But if you intend to compete in the race to the top, then you might as well get'em all.
Besides, there are still 3 months left and if you can't see a way to make back that 2-3million you'll have spent on it in 3 months, your crafting is not very profitable. (No right or wrong answers there, some people don't craft for profit and I understand that, but that's my main motivation and I think lucis is definitely worth the trouble with 3 months to go)