Big, complex systems can be pretty awesome. But not when they are overly clunky or just kind of useless.
Oh yeah, I can agree. For instance in games entirely focused around it, it can be a pretty awesome gameplay loop (Conan Exiles comes to mind as an example of game that did it -mostly- right).
But I usually don't like it that much when it's just a layer added on top of an already self-sufficient system. DOS 1 and 2 are perfect examples of games where the crafting felt almost completely redundant (and unless he changed his mind, Swen Vincke seemed to agree in his GDC talk about the making of the game).
