The Joy of Crafting

[Okiura]

Preventing Destabilization is based on Elemental Alignment

I also find ele resist food helps here too, if your lvl is the same as the recipes or higher then craftsmenship food will be the choice as you shouldn't be getting trouble with unstable elements.

also acting on each color adjusts how much durability reduces by and progress/quality increases by, will try find the link to an alternitave source i used, but the info you supplied is pretty comprehensive.

here's the info for penalties for unstable elements, from the Lodestone's front page the link is here.

Lightning: Progress greatly reduced
Wind: Durability consumption greatly increased
Fire: Quality greatly reduced
Ice: Progress reduced, chance of aetherial sparks reduced
Earth: Durability consumption increased, chance of aetherial sparks increased
Water: Quality reduced, chance of aetherial sparks increased

All Moon and Compass theories are as yet unproven and have little evidence.

This is unproven, I do think any compass related effets are very unlikley. However my personal experance with the moon is full is bad for sucess but good for HQ and New is the opposite.
This is purely my observation and there could be alot of additional factors (if moon has an effect) that may effect this, like Guardain, Name day, Race etc...