Crafting finished items should involve skill, especially materia attachment and HQ synthesis.

But there needs to be an alternative method to progression other than flatout grinding. Obviously to be a successful crafter, being a successful merchant should be a part of the gameplay, so there does need to be some degree of mat-buying and farming involved (in my opinion), but I think it would be better if progression wasn't just a flat-out grind.

There are multiple ways to make progression less boring. One way is to incorporate the grind into doing quess (and I dont mean levequests). For example, they could make it that you have to repair certain barricades for your free company or grand company, or go on quests into the wilderness to build staff or make gear for people. In otherwords, you would still be consuming items, but it would make for more interesting gameplay and get you out and about, experiencing the world. They could balance the progression system so that time/exp is slightly better than flat-out grinding so that people choose the more interesting progression style over boring grind.

I guess that would be my vision for crafting. There is a lot you can do with it, but in general, without resorting to specifics, the main points are:

-Make crafting involving and skill-based for finished items and materia attachment
-And also, make the progression system less invested in repetitive grinding of mats