Honestly, if your goal is to level crafters/gatherers, leves are the way to go. You can look up some easy ones roughly on your level and dump things at them.
The Gillionaire Girls have good
crafting and gathering (
mining,
botany, and
fishing) guides for leveling (just stay away from some of the other stuff they offer).
Teamcraft is a hugely useful resource, and they have useful
crafting and
gathering guides too, plus the ability to link recommended gearsets to their website if you create a free account. That's how I keep track of sets myself.
Allied societies (previously beast tribes) are an okay daily EXP gain. Custom deliveries are handy, but those are once per week. From ShB on, there's the special group quests (Crystarium, Studium, and Wachumeqimeqi) which can get you some levels also. Deploy your squadron (remember those? lol) once a week and you can stock up on crafter or gatherer EXP buffs (also battle ones if you're still leveling those).