Not sure if it was talked about or not but Crafting in my opinion is a nice thing to have. Take a look at the free to play game called Warframe, you do the mission, you pick up loot here and there, grab a blueprint and bam! you are crafting your new weapon.
Devs should be interested in this too, you can introduce a lot of things for the $$ for example blueprints can be sold at a store, or some crafting material. You can bet my money that people will buy it, especially if it’s something like a blueprint for some purple weapon!!! Therefore loot becomes something useful and desired in game.
Introduce blueprints in to current loot system, and add them to the store where you can purchase them for real money or in game credits.
make loot an actual crafting material, etc…