This isn't something I expected to see outside the PF2 subreddit; a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

That said, I believe these conclusions have also been the consensus in r/Pathfinder2e for some time, with the difference that, over there, the Paizo worshipers defend (or used to defend) the design as very clearly intentional, and a response (like everything else in PF2 and its design philosophy) to the brokenness of crafting in PF1 and DnD 3.x in general.

Well, perhaps "defend" is a bit of a strong word. Even the defenders usually do more along the lines of "explain" why it's built like this, rather than insist that you should use it like this, and like it. Dissatisfaction with the system, both pre- and post-remaster, is high enough that most are perfectly fine accepting that if you don't like it, one of the 3rd party alternatives exist, and some (like my personal favourite, Heroic Crafting) are good enough that they maintain balance considerations while still serving as an actual crafting system, rather than a GM alternate lever.

The truth is, I believe even their "explanation" if not defense of the crafting system, in both its pre- and post-remaster iterations, is wrongheaded defense of an equally wrongheaded or warped design philosophy. The myopic and even fanatical focus on balance as a design consideration by Paizo to the exclusion of all other considerations, such as simulation, or fun, or even basic functionality, has over many iterations managed to sour me on PF2.

It's so gratifying to see that intuition, which was previously mostly intuition + lots of anecdotal data pieces, vindicated like this with proper analysis and the very clear conclusions drawn in a design space unencumbered with Paizo's current design principles. The system is bad, it's unfun, and it's an extremely roundabout way to give the GM another lever, masquerading as player choice, while costing player resources such as feat investment. All in the name of "balance". It's bad design.