Well, I mentioned it wouldn't be quite the same. The "press 1 repeatedly" standard action is automated, rapid synthesis would only really be feasible if it's a craft you pretty much have no chance of failure on. For any other one, you have to keep an eye on your progress and durability, and repair at the right time (If you just spam repair, your progress plummets), as well as use the various abilities you've set to interact with the two bars as well. Could even be abilities that work well together, such as one that boosts progress gained immensely, but at a great cost to durability, and a second ability that completely removes durability loss for a few seconds.

The reason I don't want "puzzle minigames" is, imagine if this wasn't solely related to crafting. What if you had to solve a sudoku puzzle to mount your chocobo? Every single time you wanted to do so? What if fighting Ifrit involved playing bejeweled to open a door? All of these are examples of sudden genre shifts that can turn players away, especially if that player isn't very good at sudoku or bejeweled.

Games are usually designed around a central task, and as you play you get better at this task (and can subsequently succeed at harder applications of it). For a game like FFXIV, this task is to survey a situation in real time and use the right abilities at the right time. No matter the differences between all the classes, it essentially boils down to that. It requires that you use the UI elements like HP or durability bars to be able to clearly see your situation, and that you have a number of options available to you, each of which has clear bonuses and penalties. A puzzle game changes all this, and is in fact more or less the direct opposite. You can't always get a clear, accurate view of everything in a puzzle game, nor are the immediate effects of a given action always apparent.

If we want the Disciplines of Hand to be an actual class, something that unlocks new options and potential for a player, some of which may be considered vital for certain builds, then we need to make the disciplines accessible. This doesn't mean it has to be easy, we can have challenging synths. But it does mean that if someone is good at playing the rest of the game, they should be capable of being somewhat competent at DoH, which means using the same lessons they've learned playing their other classes.