Crafting and fetch quests are basically the same thing, at least as implemented in most games. Collect X of Y material, turn it in/craft it into item Z.
Sometimes there's a skill tied to crafting. Everyone knows you need that skill, because the crafted stuff is going to be the best. Alternatively, the crafted stuff isn't the best and the crafting skill is a waste.
I guess the crafting in path of exile is OK. The crafting items are the currency, and each item does a different thing. So you are creating your own unique item out of a base item you already have and want. Of course the PoE crafting system is RNG more than anything...
In minecraft, early on the crafting was billed as "You build the thing you want in the little grid, then you get it!". Of course it doesn't really work that way, it's a bunch of recipes. So I guess the twist there was the combinations weren't all disclosed, the players had to figure them out. Or, as almost everyone did, you look up the crafting guide and alt-tab to it every 10 seconds while you're learning the game.
In fact, there's my peeve. Games that make you play a pointless and un-loseable minigame to perform an action in game. For example, minecraft crafting, fallout 3 hacking and lockpicking, elder scrolls lockpicking...
If you can reasonably fail the minigame and it makes a difference to the game, it doesn't count. Fallout and Elder Scrolls lockpicking in theory should be in this catagory, but the sheer numbers of lockpicks they throw at you, combined with the ease of the minigame, puts it into the pointless and un-loseable catagory for me.
Deus-ex hacking is close, but you can get detected by guards during the hack attempt, as well as get bonus XP, so it's not entirely pointless. Being able to savescum at the terminals does make the whole thing a little pointless, but savescumming is a whole other thing...