This wouldn't stop anyone from crafting, most people can't craft armour and they can't rely on the 2% of the population that can. You can't have an armour crafter char that isn't shit at combat and if you don't have the time and resources to alt then the only source is vendors and you need high barter to effectively interact with them, another thing that rules out a combat char.
Some time ago I thought, that my char has to be self-sufficient and use only items that he can make on his own. But in this game, focused on interaction between players, it leads to nowhere.
My one and only char is 2 lvl Gunsmith Small Guns and 1 lvl Armorer, so I can craft almost every type of ammo for SG, and trade or exchange it with my friend, who's char is for example 3 lvl Armorer. Another one has a char with 3 lvl Gunsmith SG, another has a (except some combat skills) good barter skill, so he helps me selling my stuff for caps, and so it goes.
About time consuming - when I've made 200 pieces of .223 FMJ, cooldown is around 70 minutes, if I remember correctly. So I can go hunt something or dig some rocks. After digging 15 pieces of minerals and 5 pieces of ore (this amount I can carry on my own), I can make some gunpowder and metal parts, and make another 100 pieces of .223 FMJ, and there are still some resources left. This takes around 20~30 minutes of real time, and gives ~1500 xp (almost without risk to being killed in encounter). What am I doing during waiting for gathering cooldowns? Well, many things, that I have to do in real life - clicking "use on" every 6 minutes isn't that disturbing. Not so long ago it was 12 minutes - remember?
