Currently, crafting is good for being able to meld things and for making glamour prisms and (if you didn't do anything else), be able to make "to-the-endgame" gear for yourself or others. There is money to be made for fresh 50's for them to get geared up for the long haul through SM and onwards for you have to hope for a drop or rely on poetics (mind you, until you unlock the upper tier dungeons, poetic farming isn't too quick, though so much faster than pre. 3.0) For myself, I was able to buy (and still wear) an ilvl 110 bracelet that made meeting the minimum ilvl for even new dungeon a breeze and I could focus on tomes for the other slots).

That said, the current system isn't bad. It's still the only way to gear up... DoH/DoL roles (thus making it a contained system in itself). I was thinking of how else crafting could affect dropped gear, but I think the meld system is the best way really. This other game I played let you dismantle all gear for a "chance" to get a recipe that would progress the gear to a higher tier. I wouldn't mind that here, but considering how hard it is to get a drop, this would only be useful for gear obtained relatively easily. However... SE could induce more grind by including such a system so that you would have have to dismantle BiS gear or so forth to produce a "Superb" quality recipe (1 time use) to make the same gear but.. idk shiny with better stats.

Something to think about.