I disagree. From the viewpoint of a relatively new player, wisps required a lot more resources to make and use. With the existing system, I simply have to have enough archeum to upgrade; I don't have to first create gear from scratch to break into wisps (or buy them from the auction house) first. So the existing system works better for me.
You are forgetting that the old wisp system was self sustaining. Effectively you would start at illustrious, and keep trying to craft up. If you crafted illust > mag, and opened the mag, if you did not get an upgradeable, breaking down that mag allowed you to recraft the illustrious.
With this being the system, you were essentially able to keep going until you got to the higher levels. This supported both the ability to upgrade your proficiency tree rapidly, and your ability to not completely lose materials.
Sure you still had to contend with growing materials, but over all it was far cheaper and faster to grow your pigments and base materials. The system being this way allowed you to upgrade all the proficiency trees needed while keeping you mostly in the game.
The idea of the wisp system was to get to ayanad several times, break it down and get back up to ayanad again. This created enough wisps for you to attempt your regrades, or sell to the populace or craft your obsidian...whatever you really wanted to do with them. It promoted a healthier gearing option as well as money on the side for the individuals involved. It takes about 24-30 hours of time investment to get into on this server due to the increased labor rates, but it is well worth it. Within a couple of weeks you can be crafting very well.
The current system kicks you out of the crafting game severely quickly. The idea is to hit ayanad then regrade it. The current problem is two fold: archeum availability is at an all time low. Archeum trees are abysmal in all aspects (labor cost, time cost, return rates), RNG boxes from P2W barely give anything, and salvaging rates for blowing up weapons are the worst they've ever been.
With this being the case, being able to craft and the incentive to craft are near non existent. Sure, the allure of "just getting what you want" is nice, but good luck getting the grade of what you want any time soon. And the 30+ hours of investment time to get the 1 piece you need with the current system all goes out the window with that piece blowing up. You get no return, and even starting back over at illustrious with the results of the explosion are nearly impossible.
You're assuming that I can craft epherium or delphinad. I can't. It's also more time and resource efficient to farm for archeum directly.
Your logic only applies to established crafters, or those with gold/credits to burn. The only thing it does is drive up the cost for new or low geared players; often to the point of being out of reach.
As explained above, his logic is not incorrect. It doesn't take much to become established as a crafter (24-30 hours) and there wasn't much of a gold cost with the old system, especially when you consider Armorer's houses. More often than not your returns were greater than your investments. Occasionally you'd have bad crafting days, but overall your net outcomes would be even. Havockitty got rich off of the system and owned the entire jewlery market for well over two years using the wisp system. Everyone starts somewhere.
Bringing back the wisp system would benefit everyone, even beginners.
The best idea would be to bring back the wisp system and leave transmuters in the game so that ayanads could be re-rolled as you'd like.