IMHO crafting in overall needs huge rework.
First of all, just as you have noticed, crafted gear is not as good as shell/mems/drops, and to get there you have to spend tons of time. (I'm leveling Armor crafting atm)
It costs money and time to rise it, just to find out that it does not do you a lot of good.
I would love to see it so that you can either craft 1-2 rune slot for gear as long as you can craft level is the same or above level of gear and gear has less then 2 rune slots. For more rune slots you would still depend on drills, as everyone else who does not have that crafting skill.
Another thing that would make crafting great would be ability to rise durability of an item. For example, you have a cloak that is L60, you need L60 skill of crafting, L60 mats, gold and crafting rune to rise 1 dura. This will help a lot because of random factors: higher level of gear we craft - less OD pieces we get.
This would fix many problems and it would allow us to make crafting more profitable and wanted then it is right now.