Please consider increasing possible Affix Tier levels for dropped items.(not shop) Something around T7 should be good. It should be quite rare though.
Why:
Rune of removal will actually have a purpose now. Imagine an item dropped with 2 prefixes, one is T7 that you want and one is useless. You gamble it with removal and in case of success continue gambling further with crafring.
Loot hunt will be much more exiting. At higher levels i rarely check dropped items, as i know that my crafted gear is just better. Having a possibility to have affix tier that can’t be crafted can make loot exiting again.
I think you are on the track of something right here.
That the best gear would be dropped gear, but the odds of finding perfect rolled with the right modifier is near impossible. Thus making the next best thing, finding that one item with the right base, one of the right modifiers along with the rest of the modifiers being crafted onto it.
Remember we haven’t seen any endgame legendary or uniques yet, Dev have a post talking about legendary/unique items and they mention what they call “chase” items i.e. super powerful endgame items that people will spend their time farming for. Those items have yet to be implemented.