disregarding how important the barn is overall, skinning has historically been the easiest of the 3 gathering professions. Who here remembers doing the sholazar basin circle for titanium? Skinning has always had the advantage of near unlimited spawns, and you could gather the resources by doing some normal activities.
I like their attempt to balance the ease of skinning with the other professions by adding a second way to receive the harder to get resources (In proportion to recipe number and frequency of crafting). Too bad they overshot it and made mining/herbing worthless.