check out https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/hakpak/original-hakpak/complete-craftsman-reboot. They fixed a lot of recipes and added a lot more. The actual download is located on a link to github. I use it all the time.

So is crafting pretty useless without modding it? And does the mod improve the interface in any way?

IMO: Don't bother. You don't get less pain here, you get more, because the online guides will now be wrong, and you have to use the readme to understand recipes. Still have to hunt and collect masses of ingredients and combine them with similar recipes and spells.

This mod really doesn't change how crafting works in any significant way. It's exactly the same Pain that it was before.

It just fixes a couple of broken recipes, and "rebalances" some of them.

That could mean, it tones them down and makes them less powerful.

Also read the comments. It creates new bugs and conflicts.

Ok, I pretty much felt that way by this point, just wanted to make shore that there wasn't some hidden depth in the crafting system that would redeem it. It's too bad, because done right crafting systems in games can be fun, but when you have to spend a bunch of time just hunting thru different recipe books and merchants to buy ingredients that seems to cost more then the finished product, it gets not fun, fast.

While it is kind of pain, you can make nice stuff.

I made Mithral Armor with added stealth bonuses.

But I would definitely prefer something with hundreds less components...

The crafting system in NWN2 is kind of all over the place, yeah. It doesn't help that the crafting system changes with every single expansion. Personally I think that SoZ almost managed to get it right; there just should have been easier availability of recipes (perhaps a secondary system where you can discover them through experimentation?) and the ability to use the existing Mithril/Adamantine/Darksteel etc. Ingots and Planks rather than having to use the specific trade goods tied to the trading system to make them. In terms of convenience, MotB's Enchanter Satchel is definitely the easiest to use, but I felt like it focused too much on just adding straight buffs to existing items, which meant it lost a lot of "flavour" with magic item crafting.

In any case, as a general rule the crafting system is sorta designed in a way that by the time you find the materials to craft a specific item, chances are you'll find equivalent magic items of similar power either for sale in shops or via adventuring anyway. This was probably done for game balance reasons, but it also has the side effect of making item crafting feel a bit "pointless".

It's a little less pointless unless your spellcaster invests in the feat "practiced spellcaster" . That way you can do +1 weapons and armor at CL1 instead of CL3 and +2 at CL4 instead of CL6. It's only those Item creation feats that will slow you down then.
I just used Jeg's training module for that( it also has a ring for sale that gives you all of them) because it's a bit silly to expect a combat mage to have the feats to invest in item creation feats when they are not sedentary artificers and need to focus on feats that empower combat magic more.