Yeah, I'm kind of confused by all of this.
Crafting AF for crafting classes is one thing, but having to earn Gathering AF from Hamlet with an insanely low drop rate is entirely something else.
And we'll see what the stats are like on these new pieces... while I expect them to be nice, I would be surprised if they were really "AF-like" with enhancing traits on them, etc. Not to mention that crafting and gathering are both getting major overhauls that would likely make anything they put on these immediately irrelevant in 2.0.
My thought is that these are almost... preview items? Not really AF, but more like CSE hype items - they use the same models the AF will, but are slightly different in color or texture.
The gathering hats are by far the best equip for the class in the game due to unique stat offering. High Perception, primary stat, and + HQ chance percent up. The crafting hats could have high control (like most crafting hats have), +stats in the primary attributes and then HQ chance up, or "Enhance Quality" where actions either give more quality or it lowers the percent threshold to HQ so its easier to HQ on normal quality items. They can leave the more 'interesting' enhancement types for 2.0 after crafting flow gets an overhaul. As for colors, the gear is literally the exact same color and general look as the Concept art, these are the AF/CSE gear they alluded to. They could have retextured upgrades down the road, but not all JSE/AF needs to have 'enhancements' on it. In fact on the job artifact gear only 3 pieces out of 5 have unique enhancements to existing abilities.