I do find that crafting usable items, such as hypo's and shield rechargers is really all it's good for. If that's all you craft, then you get a lot of stuff to craft it with. Then again, if you have plenty of EC, then you can just buy them as well.
It'd very much like to see smaller bridges for Federation starship. I really don't like the massive ones with large, empty spaces. Speaking of which, I'd very much like to give my ship the Voyager bridge. I felt it was small enough without being too crampt.