1.0 was a wannabe sandbox, ARR crafting is the way it is because of this. IMO, complex craft system doesn't work for theme parks but FFXIV is not complex enough either to be a stand alone so it's in a strange limbo. Anyway, people, myself included, enjoy the current system but SE could do a few tweaks here and there to bring more players (the second you mention something about level all DoH...) and really split luxury from day to day items (like gear for leveling or consumables).
It's like materia V during HW, on my server so many people don't bother with it because is unnecessarily expensive (or annoying to grind a full set via Dia/PoTD)