While I agree with what you said and most of the person you quoted, I'd like to emphasize that your mentioning of repetition is the name of the game with crafting and gathering. They're not intended to be really in-depth activities in MMORPGs, unless that was part of the games entire point. I think SWG was the only game to truly market crafters and such as full-fledged roles, despite standard craft functions and play, but it was a very different time and different player mentality back then. It was very much a role aiming for RP type of players. Well 1.0 did too, but that REALLY fell flat before it could even give an honest try lol.
1.0 had a rather in-depth RNG style of gathering, instead of the standard mindless action/click style. The only thing is, given how often a "full-time" gatherer tends to do the activity, I'd imagine it'll be a far greater negative in the long-run for everyone. For anyone wondering about that, just go to the Gold Saucer and try the mining and botany mini-games. Now imagine doing that for an hour or more at a time, then apply that to doing it everyday or however often you would log on to gather as said "full-time" gatherer. At some point, we would all hit that "I don't want to think anymore" state of mind.
Some people might like it regardless, but it really is one of those "simple is better" type of decisions. Crafting and gathering is generally an afterthought in MMORPGs, not just for devs but for players as well. Most of us have it in our minds that it should be simple and straightforward because of the fact that we're expecting a need to have repetition for a very long time to gather/craft what we want. Personally, crafting and gathering are huge, and sometimes sole, reasons why I play the genre. I just try not to delude myself into thinking a large portion of the playerbase feels the same, otherwise that'd just be illogical lol.