Text macros tend to make me do the exact opposite of what the macro says.
I'll go out of my way to not despell any WAR who spams the chat and my ears with his annoying sound-based macro about his buff ending and needing despell soon.

Also, if it's purely the healer's fault I died AND they have an insulting raise macro (about how the dead player is lazy and such a fail for dying) I might not get up at all.

But yeah, in general, macros are great to let your group know you are doing something that affects them (raising people, pulling the boss, sleeping certain adds, explaining the strategy, etc.) just don't overdo it.
For skills, usually macros make you a worse player except for very few exceptions the posters before me already pointed out
No idea about crafting, but if they say it's great I guess it is