What would you like DA4 to keep from its predecessors?

It might help a little, but the benefits are wider than that and the problems with DA:Is crafting for me are much deeper.

On the DA2 resource system, it's first a better reward for exploration than the multiple nodes found in DA:I. If there are only 5 nodes of Unobtanium in the game versus 35, then finding one is a much bigger reward for the questing Player. Second, it's just more realistic than finding areas that are lousy in a couple of minerals that keep appearing (little different from the organics but still...). You can imagine that the Shadow Inquisition is covering the mining, picking, whatever for you while you get on with the real adventure. Third, it eliminates the need for endless farming which is really poor game design we need to get beyond. I know every stone and twist in Alphonse's Passage not because it's great level design, but because it has multiple nodes of Dawnstone and Silverite in a fairly short, convenient passage (unlike getting Navarrite and Volcanic Aurum in the Hissing Wastes). If there were an actual game element to the harvesting, it might be different but it's all an exercise in running the same path and jumping up the same rocks over and over again. Next playthrough, I'm going to go no armor/weapon crafting again.

On the issues of the DA:I crafting system, resource availability (and specifically metal availability) is just one issue. Another issue is that anything you craft has no level limit, unlike items you find or buy. With a lucky or strategic buy of a higher level schematic, you can quickly bypass the level limit as a guardrail. For example, in my current playthrough, I found a Sturdy Battlemaster armor schematic pretty early for that type of Tier 3 Protection (in the Graves around Level 11 or so for the party, IIRC). Even with Tier 2 metals, this gave my warriors a huge boost in protection and capability that normally would only be available at Level 17+. Another issue with crafting in DA:I although I would consider it less of an issue with resource scarcity, is that you can design your equipment to overlap bonii for maximum effect instead of having to play mix and match with what is found and/or making tough decisions on what you buy. Being able to do that is not, itself, an issue. The fact that you can do so easily for all four companions is.

As for companions having set equipment, its got some advantages (easier to animate, creates a signature 'look', more developer control of power levels) but I see a fair bit of pushback from some Players who may not like the look of one armor set (thinking about Isabella for example) and others may not like the choices made by the developers as to powers of the equipment offered. It is, as a lot of things in game development, a series of trade-offs. Thanks for your time.