I personally have never liked crafting and such things in RPGs (save for MMOs like RuneScape where this is done very well).
They basically turn the game into a giant fetch quest. Especially when there's a high
power curve. In game design, this is when the character you start the game out with is fundamentally different at the end - quite probably a lot stronger. The game turns into a grind very fast, which is not very fun at all. That's why I really enjoyed games like Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls series, where gear is somewhat de-emphasised, or at least, you're never expected to go out of your way to get/create the best gear like in most MMORPGS. The reason RS (which I have many years experience with
) did this well is because you can
ignore the crafting aspect.
Full disclosure: I'm a
Hacklike (subset of the roguelike genre) fan, though I actually like story in my RPGs so I'm not your traditional rogueliker.
You just wasted 3 seconds of your life reading this.