Yeah I get it. I like it because there were times when one person figured out one step, then another person was able to figure out the next one. I prefer finding the combinations myself vs using the craft books found in game. When reading the books in game, I found that a majority of the info in the books were already found.
I wanted to upgrade water magic to 4, but there is no plus sign anymore, I guess 3 is highest lvl for now.
The max at the moment is 5. You probably just have enough points to level it to four at the moment.