May be worth keeping in mind, there's not a great deal of content at/around 54 that will see a great deal of benefit from materia. Generally, while leveling, you tend to cycle through new gear fairly quickly, and often get the most use out of melding onto level-cap gear (50/60/70/80)

That said, it's guaranteed to receive your materia back from your gear now (at least I assume you can still do that even without having the crafters leveled), so there's certainly no harm, either.