Crafting may be far from good in XIV, but it is a ton better than it was in XI. Having to just hope you'll get any "xp" (skillups) from each attempt was annoying, especially later on when those skillups were pretty rare.

I think the main reason people don't remember being as bored in XI while crafting is that the materials to even skill up on were usually so expensive every synth was a nerve-wracking experience. Spend 5 hours hunting materials for 30 minutes of synthing only to get a total of 0.1 skillups. That's not boring, that's just annoying.