I'll be honest here. Crafting and gathering in this game is by far the most complex iteration out of ANY MMO out there (EvE online might have the #1 spot). Making miner/botanist/fisher it's own job I found to be very ambitious. And the same goes for all the crafting jobs.

Shadowbringers has spoiled crafting and gathering CONSIDERABLY. Although, I do miss the more complex crafting in ARR and Heavensward, but I don't want to go backwards as that type of crafting was cryptic and required quite a bit of know how.

My guess is SE will possibly try to make it harder to macro a craft to prevent high supply on coveted items, and in an attempt to stave off insane competition of "the undercutting game" that it currently is now. I don't have time to sit there and constantly adjust all my posting. In a expansion or patch week that is the one thing that I can't STAND is that I just can't get away from the retainer bell due to bot's undercutting and people driving the price of something into the basement.

I didn't become a good crafter until it was to late. Late stormblood when I really started to focus and spent a crap load of gil to get into the high end crafting game. Boy did I have it all wrong, and I learned real fast on what was a waste of time and what made me the most profits.

Crafting and Gathering in this game is sooo much better then any other game. Why? Because like you are doing now, you can be specifically a gatherer and be ok. You can lose yourself in the Market Board for days on end....I know I have. And at the end of the week when I empty the pockets of my retainers to count up my haul...that's a good feeling.