Crafting has the opportunity to be challenging and engaging with all the different abilities. Unfortunately, it's often just a matter of figuring out a macro once and then running it while semi-afk. Rarely is there any benefit to manually crafting. It would be great if there was a way to optionally increase challenge for those that want it, without disrupting the existing crafting macros and increasing difficulty for those that don't.

My suggestion is to add an "inspiration" ability to all crafters. The ability randomly procs, maybe 1/3rd of the time. Each time the ability is used, you get an inspired stack. If you HQ the craft, each stack has a chance to provide an extra reward of some kind based on the difficulty of the item. This would add a push-your-luck mechanic to the game, as well as add optional challenge for crafters who want it as each time they get a stack they also disrupt their rotation.

Rewards could be as simple as a chance to get a materia, to getting an "artisan voucher" that could be traded in for rewards, titles, a different HQ symbol for "artisan" gear for bragging rights, etc.