For which recipes use Craftsmanship or Magic Craftsmanship it's easy... just use one set like 2-3 times with a synth and switch sets and try it again. One set will be obviously easier and its success actions will more often reach the maximum potency. It looks like items within the same "family" use the same stat so for example, if you find out what stat a Bronze Pelta uses then all Peltas use that stat.

HQ Rates are notoriously extremely random which is why you get random +1s without trying and no HQs at all when you are.

Books and sub crafts are going to lose their necessity in crafting but currently if you don't have the book or proper subcraft, you will lose durability on every action no matter what, like around 8-10 per action even if you succeed. These requirements are going away this next patch, though, so these affects won't be around much longer.

Stat changes with food aren't shown at all, not just for crafting. I think they are making buffs be shown on your status screen this patch so that might fix it.

And I wouldn't worry about any moon phase/weather/date since 99% of it is baseless superstition.