I don’t play the AH (just not an interest), and I’ve maxxed out crafting on only one character in DF lol.
This was a first, for me. Usually I’ve a few alts that max our their profs.
I really would like to see the data on how many folks have fully specced out their professions, I bet it’s really low.
Because although you see a problem (and I agree with you in part), the devs have said that they don’t see a problem, other than the need to fulfill weekly crafting quests with an NPC (instead of the botched 4 public orders limit that gets quickly sniped so others can’t complete their crafting weekly without the help of alts/friends/guildies).
Made up statistics are… made up! 
It’s not banned because all add-ons that collect data (like AH pricing or combat damage/healing) are using an API published by Blizzard to support add-on development. It’d be pretty trivial for Blizzard to cut off some API data calls or simply not publish any of them (effectively killing most add-ons; all you’d have are in-game macros), but add-ons enhance player experience with ZERO cost to Blizzard. Calling them cheats that should be banned is clearly your opinion and not Blizzard’s or they wouldn’t have published an API for add-on development in the first place. The botting programs is a valid comment (see next response).
All of these “issues” come down to supply and demand. If the base supply for crafting materials is overly abundant, then the cost to make these items becomes cheap, and profit margins drop; basic economics. Bliz likely designs the cost of crafting around a predicted rate of gathering that assumes no bots (i.e., X active players, Y% of active players are gatherers that can deliver Z amount of resources per unit time). If they looked at actual data-driven supply metrics, that would implicitly include the adverse impact of bots on the game economy, but that’s not a good crafting-cost pricing model because bots are cheating and pricing around cheaters punishes those that are playing by the rules (no bots).
The solution to that is ban accounts that bot (they do this pretty aggressively, but it still seems ineffective) -OR- code limitations in gathering (e.g., each account can only gather N resources of each type per day or per week). Cleary they’re banning accounts, but I don’t think they’ve really looked into hard-coded gathering limitations (probably feels like it destroys a “free market” for those that want to work hard at legit gathering, but they have a serious bot problem to deal with and bans aren’t working).
It’s probably fun for those that only focus on crafting, but I’m part of your (made-up) 99.99% that would prefer a simple skill bar from 0-100 that improves every time I make an appropriately difficult item; an orange recipe should always be available while leveling crafting (too many gaps currently where you only have yellow/green crafting difficulties and that too is frustrating).
The idea of specializing with a point-based tree allocation was an interesting experiment, but I agree that it’s not necessary for or wanted by a majority of people that want to do their preferred end-game content mode with some crafting on the side. The devs should look at the amount of crafted items per month (normalized by the active player population each month) posted on the AH or the Crafting Order system compared to the last two expansions (again normalized monthly data); if there’s been a significant fall-off in crafters, I think they should face the data and own up to a failed experiment. If the data supports their decision to abandon or stick with this new system, I can live with a data-driven decision. Hubris of “we made it so much better” when the data says otherwise just confirms bad leadership in the WoW dev house.
Almost same as me, cuz I did have BS / JC in my warrior too.
Since TBC I never had alts for professions anymore.
Well we won’t have that but from seeing people around a lot people don’t want to be crafters and that is fine, it is a niche and you’re not REQUIRED to have professions at all.
I don’t understand?
This is the best profession system that has ever been in the game.
Yeah, that Artisan’s thingy is pretty neat, you can just have someone else make something you need.
So at the very least, you don’t have to be able to make it yourself anymore.
Crafting is one of the joys I have in the game, as I can finally realize my desire to be a blacksmith and the system now allowed me to actually serve others in a meaningful.
Like it or not I feel like I have my shop stationed in Valdrakken attending customers every day.
I didn’t bother fully upgrading my professions because I wanted to focus on crafting leather armor, so I mostly skipped trees that didn’t help me with that (like crafting mail armor).
This is working exactly as Blizzard advertised it. They wanted people to specialize in different things and not worry about maxing out all the bars.
Well it was the problem in the first season right you would only get maximum one area specialized, so I had 2 Blacksmiths one for weapons and another for armor, until later I was able to fully specialize into the weapons as well.
I think my biggest Gripe was the Toxic Work Orders. I had to clear Brackenhide every week, fly there, run to the alter, just to complete a work order. I stopped doing them half way thru the expansion because of it, as well as a lot of other people. We have 1 guy that does all the work orders on sarg now, and he has a ton camped out there on a saved instance just for this lol
Don’t they do this for everything?
Raids lose participation every expac as they add alternative ways to gear that are more fun(Like M+, soon to be Delves) yet they combat this by trying to force people into raids with exclusive only gear from raids(giving raids item an on use/proc, higher ilvl, etc)
That was toxic aff 
But the cauldron fixxed that didn’t
… you do realize this is a benefit of the system, right? And it is that because of what you then said here:
You don’t even have to have the profession but what dictates the power level of it is based on soulbound components, meaning that you still have to perform at the level where the item you are getting crafted is an appropriate level for your character.
Folks don’t need to max out their professions to get the gear. Unlike one had to in the past. Engineering used to be the best profession in the game simply because it was the only one that provided an actual DPS increase.
It is a good thing that no one is forced to become a crafter but that we can still have a system that makes crafting meaningful. It is the best of both worlds and that is derived from the fact that folks don’t have to max out their professions.
It’s certainly different, and I think it’ll just take some getting use to on my part.
I just had a poor impression at the start of DF, because I just didn’t know what the hell I needed to spec into, and the whole stuff with people taking advantage of mettle, dropping professions, and taking up another to get more of it. Thus, unfair advantage at the time.
Just felt lost with it, it wasn’t straightforward like the old system.
And Elemental Lariat recipe, hated that lol.
Still, better to have change than stagnation. Professions largely haven’t changed until now.
you needed an alchemist for the pattern. I couldn’t find one to save my life lol.
Wholeheartedly agree.
My partner was lucky and it dropped for them and they wanted to surprise me and gave it to me. So… I was very lucky to not have to spend all of DF farming those elites! ^^’
It did not, it only had 3 charges.
Say what, now?
But that aside, the current crafting system has a good base to keep developing upon. TWW crafting trees are much better and more clearly defined than the DF ones, although the work required to get good at them is still going to be quite high (rip multi crafters)
I am and always was of the opinion; we should have 2 profession slots like we do now, but also an extra 3rd slot only usable for a gathering profession. Would alleviate a lot of pressure
Working as intended.
Blizzard expected you to hire someone else to craft things for you - not roll another toon to get a different specialization on the same week.
The only thing I really hated about tradeskills this expansion is when I played an alt for a few weeks and then returned to my main, I fell far behind with my tradeskills and lost all motivation to pursue them.
Not sure if it’s possible, but I wish they’d let us work on our main tradeskill no matter what alt we have logged on. The only catch is the alt must be able to use the same tradeskill as our main. So if both my characters can use leatherworking, then my leatherworking skill should be the same between those toons
and still cost multiple thousands of gold to craft
in a world where people tip sub 1k, you’re paying them to craft their item. it’s so dumb.