Smithing makes armour to fight with and crafting makes the jewelery you wear. Firemaking was meant to be a gold sink. Once you burn the log, there's no way to profit or get it back. This way is stabilizes the economy. As in, useless from a single player perspective. Other than for the sake of leveling, theres no real point of having smithing at all, you don't make profit from it, it just costs you money, just like firemaking does. Plus, firemaking is needed for more useful quests :D I had 49 smithing a lvl 15 combat because I was too stupid to go buy steel armor and was determined to get full steel. When I learned you could buy every piece in a store I was pissed though. Regardless, it was my most valuable skill at the time, while being my most neglected now. Firemaking was generally neglected back in the day; but now it is useful for the inferno adze, the hand cannon, and of course a cheap skillcape.