Why would the first one be stupid when it was implemented only very late in the game.
We can not go and farm materials from nodes lying on the ground like every gathering profession.
We do not have a comparable solo source of the materials that herbalism, mining and skinning all have.
Our primary source is not only reliant on group content, but then split up and shared with the group without any choice in the matter.
Nobody else is forced to do that, not herbalists, miners or skinners.
When the other professions are reliant on a group for a substantial part of their materials, and then forced to share that with the group can you then tell us that the current system is fair.
Currently all it does is hugely devalue our profession making materials largely unsellable due to lack of demand.
Would you gatherers have a market if everyone had their own materials ? No.