For wood to coal, I personally like the current ratio, but admit that that it depends on your current situation. On a forested world, gathering 2000 wood (enough to leave the system) is child's play, and shouldn't take you more than a dedicated 8 minutes. It's a reasonable alternative to scouring the surface or aimless delving into the earth in search of every last scrap of the stuff, without cheapening travel at early stages of the game.
Crap weapons are crap, but I'm not sure about crafted weapon imbalance yet. I certainly noticed a difference moving from the broken sword to an iron hammer- namely, that the number of hits it required to kill an average Alpha Sector mob went from 4-5 to 2-3. Not a huge change in terms of DPS, but it meant I could end battles more quickly and deal with more enemies at once.
It would be nice if they increased the average quality of weapon drops, without hitting such a rate that made crafted weapons obsolete. If the average drop is as good or better than what we can make ourselves, we'll stop gathering ores around the 3rd tier and just farm dungeons for gear, then start complaining about fuel costs. This seems to be a different dynamic than what the Devs are aiming for, based on the various updates.