First thing I do in an MMO is check out crafting. 

So why is it that new MMO's seem to follow the same bland path of 'add ingredients' and click? 

Anet has gone to the trouble of making some nice crafting stations, multiple ingredients and even a discovery panel.  Lets face it though, within 10 minutes you know every discovery recipe will be on the net.  Besides that its pretty generic and that is disappointing as it could have really enhanced the game.

I really miss crafting systems that had that element of making something incredible or achieving something.

e.g.

Vanguard - The daddy of crafting systems.  This game had a system that was mind boggling. A whole set of items/clothing just for crafting.  I remember travelling across vast distances just to find a new recipe to make a different looking cupboard.  Making an item took skill and once mastered was very rewarding.

EvE - Yes EvE has a click = make system.  However, they had a lottery system which I heavily invested in and I managed to win 1 tech 2 Blue print in 6 years.  I knew I was only one of a handful of people out of 150k players that had this.  People were offering real life money for it.  Another thing with EVE is the cost.  You could learn anything but for a good recipe it would cost 100's of millions of ISK to get.  So that was an achievement in itself and the recipe could be stolen or traded so it was guarded.

Earth & Beyond - I played a crafter type person and loved it.  Reverse engineer a rare item and there was a slight chance you would learn the recipe. Most occassions it would blow up. So learning something great really was amazing.  Items that were made had a percentage of quality.  Make 5 items exactly the same and they would all be different.

So my gripe with GW2 is that its just not that inspiring or unique.  Have the option to destory an item to see if you can learn it.  Have an option to spend 3 gold to buy a rare recipe. It would be bloody hard but rewarding.  Have recipes drop from NPC's or parts of a recipe that needed a person to farm from each corner of the world to get the whole piece.

GW2 is ok but I really really miss crafting that had that big wow element and option for a crafter to work really hard to earn something most don't have. 

It's streamlined, like everything else in the game. Why not craft? Everyone crafts and crafting gives you XP. What is it? Ten levels total per craft you're trying to level up?

Everyone crafts (because it's so flipping easy), everyone gets the same rewards, everyone sells the same shit, no-one wins...or is it everyone wins (GW2 design philosophy)?

Meh, just do it. What can you lose? Aside from money/karma, if you're doing cooking.

I do accept it and use crafting a lot but I just feel modern MMO's ignore the importance of crafting and since GW2 have gone all out on exploration and harvest nodes etc.  Its a shame they didn't put more effort into crafting.

What I really miss is the adrenalin rush of doing something with crafting and not knowing if it will work, or working my arse off to make something  (Fallen Earth also did this, especially when you finally made a good vehicle)

Some examples

- In Earth and Beyond I spent 5 hours killing rare mobs to get a special weapon. I found 3 and I tried to reverse engineer and the first 2 blew up.  These items were worth a lot of money as well and when the third worked I was pumped.

- In Vanguard I found an extremely rare piece of wood (only found 2 in 6 months) and I was crapping myself trying to make a unique bow at Grade A. I managed to just do it and then I was given the award of being the first on the server for making the item. 

- In EvE I saved up around 900 million ISK to buy an original BP for a battleship.  That took a lot of hard work but I knew it would benefit the corp big time.

GW2 like most MMO's have a craft system that really doens't punish or reward more than, add this and you get this...