Some of it is RNG but mostly on the item drops. Crafting goes up pretty much as planned because with so many rolls it evens out.
For me, I do go out looting whenever I can but ended up crafting a lot of my gear. In A20 I might have crafted 1 or 2 pieces tops.
Crafting is definitely a lot more viable now, especially since you can craft items with 4 mod slots.
Eventually looting will get you the final version of your stuff but... given the 4 mod slots a lot of QL5 gear can now be better than QL6 so even that is not a huge difference any more.
And "eventually" is something in the vicinity of lvl 75-90 so that's gonna be a while.