There is really only one problem with crafting. We have a lot of materials and we need long long hours of spamming one synthesis to skill up crafting. The results are:

1. Garbage in inventory (every single mob drops like 3-4 different items + HQ versions, and they drop A LOT + rewards from leves).
2. Drops from monsters/gathering are worthless since theyre very common.
3. Crafters use A LOT of materials (spending BORING in game hours) crafting A LOT of items.
4. A LOT of crafted items means they are worthless items.

If, there was no item rewards from leves, drops from monsters/gathering were quite rare, and DoH SP/rank was much much lower, it would result in:

1. No such a garbage in inventory/retainers.
2. Rare drops means more valuable drops.
3. Crafters use much much less materials during skillup, spending much less time mashing STANDARD SYNTHESIS, and make much less items.
4. Less items = more valuable crafted items (even NQ).

Crafters still wouldnt rank up fast, because there woudnt be enough materials to skillup fast. And with demand much higher than supply, materials would be worth farming.

Currently in FFXIV one Goldsmith skilling on silver needles would make like 2 needles per every person on the server and still he would be getting decent skillups on that synthesis. This is crazy. How do you expect crafted items to be valuable?