If they're going to make it a new system, it shouldn't be a puzzle. People who like puzzles play puzzle games. FFXIV is not a puzzle game. I'm certain there are plenty of players who would find the puzzle system annoying and time consuming.

Something they could do instead, is make the system more akin to combat, where you have a couple bars to gauge (Perhaps durability being similar to your HP and progress being the craft's HP, in this analogy), and several actions to interact with these gauges, whether slowing durability loss, increasing progress gain, restoring durability, and other such factors. This would make crafting more engaging, while at the same time not completely changing the genre.