You're quite right with the iron ingot being used in many recipes, and the degree of work needed to go through and "clean up" the recipe system to make the ingredients more appropriate to the final item rank. Even if they don't do this for some recipes, they definitely have to do so for some.
Here is the worst recipe that I've seen in the current system
Thousand Needle Recipe. This gem is made from ONE monster-dropped item. It can drop off of cactuars as low as rank 20. The synth is rank 32, and yet it makes the highest level, r42 weaver tool. This is horribly broken now, and with the 1.20 patch would be magnified enormously. (I.e. Farm Needle +3, 100% HQ Thousand Needle, Done)
Whether be design or by accident (I'm guessing design), the initial recipes are being released BEFORE the changes to the HQ system. This gives a chance for feedback concerning the new recipes, as to which were missed, or need to be further modified for the upcoming HQ changes.
p.s. Thank you for the compliment

. I do have my opinions, but know they're just opinions. I enjoy reading the forums sometimes, as they can be a great way to discuss things and see new aspects to systems that I didn't yet understand, or to point out possible flaws in systems released or planned to be released. If we all had the same point of view, life would be a lot less interesting!