Chrysalide (apparently seems to be a new SWG dev) has released a document that attempts to clarify the devs' goals on the new crafting quests. The post is posted below:

Hello everyone, We appreciate all the comments and feedback about the items in Publish 9.2, and I would like to follow up with a few of our thoughts regarding the Crafting Contractor quests. The primary demographic for which these quests are designed is the junior crafter that is trying to work his or her way up to master the profession. The Crafting Contract system is intended to be an alternative for those that are trying to get experience at novice levels, but find it difficult to sell the items that they make to other players. To this goal, crafters have had the option to use 'practice mode' on their crafting tools to earn slightly more experience at the cost of losing the prototype item that would normally be produced. This system is comparable to what we are trying to achieve with the Crafting Contractor quests. Filling the contracts may be a little slower, but the experience bonus is larger and the crafter will get a small credit reward (as opposed to no credit return in practice mode). We wanted the main reward for these contract to be the experience bonus for completing the assignment, the credit rewards are intentionally on the low side. These are not quests from which you will make a profit, we still want the main source of income for crafters to be from selling items to other players. We do not want to exclude intermediate or advanced crafters that want to take part in the system, and so your local crafting contractor will give you the option to choose the difficulty of your assignment. Keep in mind though, that since the primary return for these quests is the experience, master crafters may find the reward less satisfying. I understand that this is not what many people had in mind for the crafting quests. That being said, and as some others have previously suggested, I think that having true "quests" for crafters is a fantastic idea (something sufficiently challenging and interesting, with an appropriately appealing reward). It is something that we have talked about, and it is something that I would love to be included with future content. Again, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to participate and post your feedback. We do take all comments seriously and keep them in mind for revisions and future content. Jeff "Chrysalide" Carpenter SWG Live Designer

Official Post