The problem is that people who harp on these changes have multiple crafts at the end of the spectrum (50) so have access to a plethora of abilities. However, if you asked new players, I'm sure the answer will be different. I'm failing lots and there's nothing fun about these changes. There needs to be a re-evaluation on the difficulty curve for new players (or players just starting to get into crafting) and also toning down some of these abilities ... they're too powerful.

Edit: Another thing to consider is that you could just have these abilities and go w/o gear and still succeed. Which is very disconcerting as this will only give rise to crafting bots.