I think the first and most important thing is something that was said earlier. If I am playing a crafter, that should matter.
If I am playing an Outlander I can gather food for the party in the wilds.
If I am playing a Sage I can find information for the party in the cities.
If I am playing an Acolyte then I have connections to the church.
Currently, if I am playing a Guild Artisan, I spend monthly dues in exchange for a lawyer. That's it. If I were to compare a 20th level Fighter crafting his own longsword for his personal use, and a 1st level fighter buying a longsword, what is the current difference? The 20th level character has an extra 7 gold and 5 silver.
Being a crafter should matter. Kibblestasty has a system where a blacksmith can maintain weapons, allowing them to give a number of rerolls to the weapon equal to proficiency. This is a solid ability that makes a party with a blacksmith different than a party without one.
I also want the ability to make something "unique", I want to be able to improvise and ask "hey, I had this idea..." and have some capability to make something not in the Core Books.
Following all this... yeah, I want to be able to sell my products for a profit. I like the fantasy merchant archetype, and if I can't make a profit with my goods, then it makes no sense that any craftperson can. IF a cobbler is going into debt by making shoes, they stop making shoes.
Cooking definitely needs to be a thing.
And finally, it needs to be fast enough to be worth the effort. As an example, My DM allowed me to take materials from a boss we fought, and I needed certain magical components to make the item from those components. It was to be a special Belt of Hill Giant Strength. We fought this hill giant at level... 4? Pretty sure it was four, because I think we got level five for that victory. We are now level 9, and I've finally finished the Belt. I still don't know what it does, but what was an amazing opportunity for our Barbarian is now pointless because she already has a 20 str. This was a really cool opportunity to turn a boss into equipment, a guy we had a whole arc fighting, and now it is... hopefully not entirely pointless for me to give to a sidekick.
And this is a serious problem. The longer it takes to make the item, the more powerful it has to be, because if it takes me four levels and nearly a year and half of RL time to make this item, and it ends up being not worth the time and effort, then the entire system is pointless.
This is why I HATE the crafting in the PHB for things like legendary items. I could start trying to make one at the beginning of the campaign and still not finish by the end of the campaign. And I shouldn't have started on the most powerful and difficult item in the game just so I can actually get it before the end of then game.
