I dunno, I never had to farm crystals while leveling goldsmithing. It was always weaving where I was crystal starved.

Anyway, I'm rich enough now that I just buy crystals. Plus even if I'm not, I can get a stack pretty easily. It was just when I was a poor sproutling where that was a problem.
Besides, crafting is pretty useless now. Since Heavensward, it takes too much effort to get too little a reward from crafting. It's only worthwhile for vanity stuff. And since gathering is just a poor man's hand to crafting, I do that even less. Every now and then I find something worth gathering, but I can normally get a stack of what I need for less than a dungeon's worth of gil.
Unless it's something gained by fishing. Screw fishing.