The thing is.. If you don't have a gathering class, you're always going to be stuck buying off mb. Those times when you only need 5 of something, but the only thing on mb is a stack of 99 for 30k gil.. Not easy for a beginning crafter to deal with. At least if you have them leveled it's easy to get a few things if needed, or a stack if needed. Then once you have some gil to play with it's not so bad buying off mb.