Has anyone checked this out?

Mass produce equips and then get an Alchemy mule to merge two of the same equips together to make one equip with unidentified potential (going off how Spadow explains Alchemy in an earlier blog post)?

Yeah, this doesn't really click with me either...

Could you point me to the place where it says that by merging equips you get one with hidden potential? I couldn't find it in the Technological Age post.

But still, fusing is part of the alchemy profession, so blacksmithing only gives the raw material. Standing on itself, blacksmith doesn't really brings that many new things to the table, while both alchemy and jewelcrafting do. I'm not saying that blacksmithing is useless, but it's really lacking in terms of innovation agains the other two, unless the items done with blacksmithing come with a chance to have potential.