I think that the reason why crafting is criticized is that it's yet another gameplay element that was already lacking in DA:O, and rather than expand on it or make it a better, improved part of the game, it was ridiculously "streamlined" to the point of irrelevance. It reminds me of the removed skills - they were mediocre and didn't have much effect on gameplay, causing non-combat skills to ultimately be more of an annoyance than a worthwhile part of DA:O. But Bioware's lazy solution was to simply gut the non-combat skills entirely, rather than come up with a solution to flesh them out and turn them into an improved aspect of the game. This is regression, and I think that criticizing these elements are perfectly valid and not silly at all because all of these minor flaws really begin add up over the course of the game. A lot of games - even great ones - have at least a few mediocre elements within them, so I see your point, but they make up for their shortcomings by having a lot of depth elsewhere.
Well said.