I've been trying to skill up on wildfowl fletchings, current level 18, and I've been failing using both craftsmanship & magic craftsmanship. I would have moments where I would get nothing but successes on both but more often than not I would fail miserably using either set.

If every recipe uses either craftsmanship or magic craftsmanship than I should have seen some benefit from using a craftsmanship or magic craftsmanship set. Why am I failing miserably using both sets?

Either this hypothesis is bogus or something else is factoring in to the equation.
I posted that in this thread http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Crafting/page2

Something is seriously wrong with crafting. There is no way it should be this hard.